I my Ebenezer raise

I my Ebenezer raise. John Fawcett* (1740-1817). First published in ten stanzas in Fawcett’s Hymns: adapted to the circumstances of Public Worship and Private Devotion (Leeds, 1782). It was entitled ‘A Birth-Day Hymn’, and headed ‘1 Sam. vii.12. Hitherto the Lord hath helped us.’ It is one of several hymns that used this text (cf. Robert Robinson*, ‘Come, thou fount of every blessing’*) in which Samuel celebrated a victory over the Philistines by erecting a stone and calling the name of it Ebenezer, ‘saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.’ It was shortened to six stanzas in John Rippon*’s Selection of Hymns* (1787), as follows: I my Ebenezer raise To my kind Redeemer’s Praise; With a...