Holy Bible, book divine

Holy Bible, book divine. John Burton (I) (1773-1822). This was published in Burton’s collection, The Youth’s Monitor in Verse, a series of Little Tales, Emblems, Poems and Songs (1803), and then in his Hymns for Sunday Schools, or Incentives for Early Piety (1806). It crossed the Atlantic quickly, and was printed in Hymns for the Nursery (New Haven, Connecticut, 1813; Hartford, 1815). As these titles indicate, the hymn’s simple message made it eminently suitable as a hymn for children, in spite of (some would say because of) its threat of hell in stanza 4. It appeared in a great many Sunday-school books in the 19th and 20th centuries, both in Britain and the USA, and in collections such as...