To thy temple I repair

To Thy temple I repair. James Montgomery* (1771-1854). First published in William Bengo Collyer*’s Hymns partly collected and partly original, intended as a Supplement to Dr Watts’s Psalms and Hymns (1812), with the title ‘A Sabbath Hymn’. It was published again in Thomas Cotterill*’s Selection of Psalms and Hymns (Eighth Edition, 1819), and in Montgomery’s own The Christian Psalmist (Glasgow, 1825), where it was headed ‘A day in the courts of the Lord’ (the reference is to Psalm 84: 10: ‘For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand’). It had seven stanzas: To Thy temple I repair, Lord, I love to worship there, When within the veil I meet Christ upon the mercy-seat. Thou, through Him,...