Hymn Writers of the Church

Conder, Josiah, the son of Thomas Conder, a London bookseller, and the grandson of Dr. John Conder, an eminent Dissenting clergyman, was born in London September 17, 1789. At an early age he lost the sight of his right eye. At the age of fifteen he 400 entered his father's bookstore, where he was thrown much with intellectual people; and this increased and confirmed the interest which he already had in literature. At the early age of twenty-one we find him, conjointly with several other young aspirants for literary fame (one of whom, Eliza Thomas, became his wife), issuing a volume of poetry called The Associate Minstrels, which attained sufficient popularity to justify a second edition two years later (1812). This same year he contributed three hymns to Dr. Collyer's collection. In 1814 he obtained control of the Eclectic Review, and from this time on he devoted all his time to literature and journalism. In 1832 he started the Patriot newspaper, which he continued to edit and publish until his death, December 27, 1855. He published more than a dozen scholarly volumes during his life, and these show him to have been a devout and pious believer. His Congregational Hymn Book, published in 1836, attained a widespread popularity which lasted for many years. Just before he died he collected all the hymns he had written with a view to publication. They were issued the year after his death under the title: Hymns of Praise, Prayer, and Devout Meditation. "His friends included most of the literary and Christian men of eminence living in the first half of the nineteenth century." A larger number of Conder's hymns are said to be in common use in England and America at this time than those of any other writer of the Congregational body, Watts and Doddridge alone excepted.