When the morning paints the skies

Author: Edward Henry Bickersteth

Bickersteth, Edward Henry, D.D., son of Edward Bickersteth, Sr. born at Islington, Jan. 1825, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A. with honours, 1847; M.A., 1850). On taking Holy Orders in 1848, he became curate of Banningham, Norfolk, and then of Christ Church, Tunbridge Wells. His preferment to the Rectory of Hinton-Martell, in 1852, was followed by that of the Vicarage of Christ Church, Hampstead, 1855. In 1885 he became Dean of Gloucester, and the same year Bishop of Exeter. Bishop Bickersteth's works, chiefly poetical, are:— (l) Poems, 1849; (2) Water from the Well-spring, 1852; (3) The Rock of Ages, 1858 ; (4) Commentary on the New Testament, 1864; (5) Yesterday, To-day, and For Ever, 1867; (6) The Spirit of Life, 1868;… Go to person page >

When the morning paints the sky. Bp. E. H. Bickersteth. [Christ, the Child's Example.] Written in 1880; published in his From Year to Year, 1883; and included in the Hymnal Companion, 1890. In the latter the author says, "This hymn was suggested by seeing the words 'What would Jesus do?' in illuminated letters on a card suspended in a children's orphanage."

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)