Our Favourite Hymns

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
‘Come unto me and rest.
Lay down O weary one,
Lay down your head upon my breast.’
I came to Jesus as I was,
So weary, worn, and sad.
I found in him a resting place,
And he has made me glad.

Definitely a hymn intended to comfort, these lyrics are Scottish in origin. Horatius Bonar was born in Edinburgh in 1808 and was educated there at the High School and the university. At the age of twenty-nine he was ordained and invited to Kelso parish, which is where he wrote this hymn, one of over 600 hymns he produced. Though this is probably his best known, he wrote hymns for every season of the church year and every eventuality, from mission stations to burial at sea. He was very fond of children, and keen to bring to life for them particularly the metrical psalms sung in the established church of those days. At the Disruption of 1743 he moved to the Free Church, remaining in Kelso, and three years later this hymn was first published in his Hymns Original and Selected. He also wrote a great number of poems and tracts, and translated poems from Greek and Latin, all said to be distinguished by good taste and deep faith. His achievements were recognised with a Doctorate of Divinity from King’s College, University of Aberdeen in 1853, and in the 1860s he returned to Edinburgh to minister there. He died in Edinburgh in 1889 and a further volume of his hymns was published by his son, also a Free Church minister, in 1904.
The tune to which we usually sing this hymn is Kingsfold, thought to have English mediaeval origins, but it was not published as a hymn tune until Ralph Vaughan Williams paired it with I heard the voice of Jesus say in 1906. An earlier tune, published in 1868, was Vox Dilecti by John Bacchus Dykes, an English clergyman and musical prodigy. Both tunes use a minor key for the first half of the verses and a major key for the second half, forming a pattern of invitation and response which develops a positive feeling through the hymn. Not a bad hymn for our times!