Day by day we magnify thee

Day by day we magnify thee. John Ellerton* (1826-1893). This was written in 1855, when Ellerton was a curate in Brighton, and published in his Hymns for Schools and Bible Classes (1859). It had seven stanzas. It was written for the opening of a National School (governed by the Church of England), and is eminently suitable for children because of the repetition of the first line in each stanza except the last. It was included in Church Hymns (1871, Church Hymns with Tunes, 1874), of which Ellerton was one of the editors. Godfrey Thring* used it in A Church of England Hymn Book (1880), and Carey Bonner* printed it in his very sucessful Sunday School Hymnary (1905). Thereafter it was largely...