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"Abide with Me" is an evening hymn. Its word pictures are taken from the experience of the passing day: falling eventide, deepening darkness, growing dimness, and fading glories. In that, it can also be an introspective of the end of life

Stricken with tuberculosis, Henry resigned the parish he pastored in England. It is said that he almost had to crawl to the pulpit for the final sermon. He wrote this prayer to Christ, echoing the words of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who...

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"Abide with Me" is an evening hymn. Its word pictures are taken from the experience of the passing day: falling eventide, deepening darkness, growing dimness, and fading glories. In that, it can also be an introspective of the end of life

Stricken with tuberculosis, Henry resigned the parish he pastored in England. It is said that he almost had to crawl to the pulpit for the final sermon. He wrote this prayer to Christ, echoing the words of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who pleaded the risen Christ to "abide with us, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent." Soon after he died, at the age of 54. What a joy when a believer can approach death as Mr. Lyte did, or as did the uncle of this writer, "I want to see Jesus."

But this text is also a prayer for living life now. The original hymn had eight stanzas and the three that are usually omitted also are a prayer for today. (Additional Lyrics) In all, this hymn reminds us to plead with our Lord to abide with us. Stay with us. Be there unchanging when all around us changes. Through cloud and sunshine, abide. "In life and death, O Lord, abide with me."

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It is commonly reported that Henry Lyte wrote this hymn in 1847, when he was dying of tuberculosis. He reportedly finished it the Sunday he preached his farewell sermon to the parish he had served for many years, before leaving for Italy in hopes of restoring his health. However, there is evidence that he wrote this hymn in 1820, after visiting a dying friend, who, on his death bed, kept murmuring the passage from Luke 24:29, where the disciples who were traveling to Emmaus asked Jesus to "...

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It is commonly reported that Henry Lyte wrote this hymn in 1847, when he was dying of tuberculosis. He reportedly finished it the Sunday he preached his farewell sermon to the parish he had served for many years, before leaving for Italy in hopes of restoring his health. However, there is evidence that he wrote this hymn in 1820, after visiting a dying friend, who, on his death bed, kept murmuring the passage from Luke 24:29, where the disciples who were traveling to Emmaus asked Jesus to "abide with us, for it is evening and day is almost spent." Perhaps, feeling his own frailty on that Sunday in 1847, he remembered the hymn he had previously written, and brought it out at that time, lending credence to the first scenario.

Originally with a tune that was also written by Lyte, this hymn was not widely used at that time. It was first published in England in a book "Lyte’s Remains, 1850, and in America in Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Collection, 1855. It was discovered by William Monk and included by him in Hymns, Ancient and Modern, 1861.

Lyte desired to leave behind a hymn that would endure. One of his earlier poems stated it: "Some simple strain, some spirit-moving lay, Some sparklet of the soul that still might live When I was passed to clay… And grant me … my last breath to spend In song that may not die!"

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