One of them was written by
Charlotte Elliott, who died at Torquay in 1871, the year we were there,
and still a favourite even in these later years, the first verse being:
Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy Blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come.
The first vicar of Lower Brixham was the Rev. Henry Francis Lyte, who at
fifty-four years of age began to suffer from consumption, and who, when
he knew he had not long to live, prayed that he might be enabled to
write something that would live to the glory of God after he was dead.
As a last resource he had been ordered by the doctors to go to the
Riviera, where he died at Nice a month later. The night before he
started he preached his farewell sermon, and, returning to his house as
the sun was setting over the ships in the harbour, many of which
belonged to the fishermen he had laboured amongst for so many years, he
sat down and wrote that beautiful hymn:
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
Then there was the Rev.
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