O God, the Rock of Ages

O God, the Rock of Ages. Edward Henry Bickersteth* (1825-1906). It is noted in JJ that Bickersteth himself gave two dates for the composition of this hymn, 1860 and 1862 (p. 832). It is not possible to know which is correct. It was published in Bickersteth’s The Two Brothers, and other poems (1871), and quickly taken up by the Presbyterian Church in England in its Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867). It was retained in the Presbyterian Church of England (the name changed in 1876) in Church Praise (1883). Bickersteth included it in The Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer (1870, 1877, 1890), but thereafter in Britain it was not well known, although it was in two major...