Hymn Writers of the Church

Beddome, Benjamin, an English Baptist minister, was born in Warwickshire January 23, 1717. He was apprenticed to an apothecary in Bristol; but when he was twenty years of age he was converted, and soon after began to prepare for the ministry. In 1743 he was ordained and became the pastor of a small Baptist Church at Bourton. Later he received an urgent call to a Church in London; but he refused the call and remained at Bourton fifty-two years--until his death, September 3, 1795. It was a frequent custom with him to write a hymn to be sung after his morning sermon. A number of these hymns were published 391 in Rippon's Selection, 1787, and so came into common use. A volume of his hymns, over eight hundred in number, was Published in 1818. James Montgomery, in the preface to his Christian Psalmist, quotes the first stanza of one of Beddome's hymns as follows,

and makes this just remark: "His name would deserve to be held in everlasting remembrance if he had left no other memorial of the excellent spirit which was in him than these few humble verses." Beddome's hymns have been more highly appreciated in America than in his native country. The honorary degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him in 1770 by Rhode Island College, now Brown University.