2 Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
The joys I feel, the bliss I share,
Of those whose anxious spirits burn
With strong desires for thy return!
With such I hasten to the place
Where God my Savior shows His face,
And gladly take my station there,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!
禱告之時！甘甜之時！
我覺喜樂，分享極樂，
靈裡焦急如同火燒，
強烈盼望你的再來。
我趕忙去到那美地，
見神我救主祂榮面。
我樂意侍立在主前，
且等候你，禱告之時！
Today March 6, 2022, was the memorial of a dear servant of the Lord. This hymn was one of two selected for his memorial titled
“A Celebration of Life.” He was so dearly loved by many saints in New England and all around the world. He loved the Lord to the uttermost, his dear wife and his children. He will be missed. This biography is about the author of the hymn “Sweet Hour of Prayer” which was a favorite of our dear departed brother in order to honor his going to be with the Lord.
The information we have about the author of this favorite hymn has come not from the author himself but from a friend to whom the poem was dictated. In 1842, in the town of Coleshill, Warwickshire, England, the Rev. I’ll Thomas Salmon stopped by a small trinket shop to visit with his friend William Walford. Walford was 70 years old at the time and his eyesight was almost gone. Nevertheless, he ran the tiny shop where he sold small carvings and engraved items.
On this particular day Walford asked his friend to copy down the verses to a prayer-poem he had been composing in his head. Salmon took pen and paper and wrote the words to the gospel hymn we now call “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” Thomas Salmon was so impressed with Walford’s poem that he made a second copy of it for himself and tucked his away in his notes and papers.
Three years later, Salmon traveled to the United States: while in New York City, he sent Walford’s poem to the editor of the New York Observer. The editor was so impressed with the prayer-poem that he published it in the September 13, 1845 issue of his paper. In addition to the text of the poem the paper carried Salmon’s tale of having received it by dictation from his blind friend, a carver of trinkets back home in England.
The possibility of the poem becoming a hymn was appreciated by the compilers of a Baptist Hymnal in 1859, and they included it in a book entitled Church Melodies published that same year.
Still it wasn’t until William Bradbury, noted American composer of gospel music set the words to music in 1861 and then published the words and music together in his collection of hymns, The Golden Chain, that the general public began to appreciate and enjoy the comforting message of this hymn.
William Bradbury was well-known in the
mid-1800s for taking a simple religious poem and giving it wings with his music. Although he was a gifted musician and composer and could have gained fame and prosperity of the field of secular music, Bradbury‘s heart was drawn to writing quality melodies for songs to be sung in Sunday schools. He disagreed with the trend in those days of using popular secular tunes as accompaniment for religious hymns. In his efforts to change this trend, he became known as the pioneer of Sunday school songs. In all, he published 60 song books containing the melodies for the following favorites as well as many others: “Jesus Loves Me,” “Just as I Am,” “My Hope is Built on Nothing Else,” “He Leadeth Me,” and “Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us.”
“Sweet Hour of Prayer” was the result of international cooperation: a blind poet and his pastor friend in England who shared their work with a newspaper editor and a composer in New York. The result was a hymn that has strengthened and encouraged faith on both sides of the Atlantic for over 150 years, proving once more that the power of prayer is not limited by political or geographical boundaries.
Hymns of Faith and Inspiration; “The Carver and the Composer.”
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care,
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known.
In seasons of distress and grief,
My soul has often found relief
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer!
"Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
The joys I feel, the bliss I share,
Of those whose anxious spirits burn
With strong desires for thy return!
With such I hasten to the place
Where God my Savior shows His face,
And gladly take my station there,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!" (not translated to Chinese)
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
Thy wings shall my petition bear
To Him whose truth and faithfulness
Engage the waiting soul to bless.
And since He bids me seek His face,
Believe His Word and trust His grace,
I’ll cast on Him my every care,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
May I thy consolation share,
Till, from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height,
I view my home and take my flight:
This robe of flesh I’ll drop and rise
To seize the everlasting prize;
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!”