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Nov 10, 2024

Henry Lyte

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He seemed ill-suited to pastor a church in a remote fishing village along the English coast inhabited by sailors earning their living from the sea. While sailors had minimal education, he was a first-rate scholar and accomplished poet. He brought his extensive library of 4,500 volumes with him (after his death, it took auctioneers seventeen days to sell off his entire collection). Sailors had a well-earned reputation for being hard-drinking, rowdy seamen while he was the epitome of moral rectitude. A quote attributed to Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Henry Francis Lyte 1793-1847) came to serve this seashore church in Lower Brixham in 1824, where he labored for twenty-three years until tuberculosis claimed his life at fifty-four. Henry’s love for the sea was intense. He and his wife Anne, along with their five children, moved into Berry Head House, formerly a military hospital, ideal for housing his extensive library and offering a panoramic view of the sea. It afforded Henry the opportunity to spot fishing vessels returning to harbor. He quickly gained favor with sailors by visiting them in their sailing ships, providing each ship with a Bible and a book of devotions he wrote expressly for sailors, making abundant use of stories about Jesus and his disciples at sea. He established a Sunday school for seaman that grew to seven hundred, that shared the gospel with sailors and their families as well as taught them basic reading and writing skills. Sailors became so devoted to Henry that they routinely showed up in worship as a group before embarking on long voyages to distant fishing grounds. Attendance at his little church soared, requiring a larger sanctuary, not primarily because of his preaching skills but as a consequence of his genuine, caring manner. Henry paraphrased all one hundred fifty Psalms in plain style English for sailors and their families. He set his paraphrase of Psalm 103 to music which is still sung in churches today as the hymn, “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven.” Another of his hymns, “Abide with Me,” was written in the afternoon following his farewell sermon and was sung for the first time at his funeral a week later. Many of his hymns, initially written as prayers, were sung to accompany themes in his sermons. Such is the case with his 1834 hymn, “My Spirit on Thy Care.” Its opening verses lead us to pray:

My Spirit on Thy care,
Blest Savior, I recline;
Thou wilt not leave me to despair,
For Thou art love divine.

In Thee, I place my trust,
On thee, I calmly rest,
I know thee good, I know Thee just,
And count Thy choice the best.

“My Spirit on Thy Care” by Henry Francis Lyte, Hymmary.org.

Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.