And now, belovèd Lord, thy soul resigning

And now, belovèd Lord, thy soul resigning. Elizabeth Sibbald Alderson* (1818-1889). This dramatic hymn on the Passion and death of the Saviour was written in 1868, and printed in the Second Edition of A&M (1875), with a tune by Alderson’s brother, John Bacchus Dykes*, called COMMENDATIO. She may have asked for a tune by him, as she did with the other hymn by her in A&M books, ‘Lord of glory, Who hast bought us’*. A&M used four stanzas, 1, 2 5, and 6 of an original hymn of six stanzas. They are a remarkable example of a certain 19th-century style, with a death-bed scene that is reminiscent in stanza 4 of ‘Abide with me; fast falls the eventide’*, and a rhetoric that is dignified...