Hymn Writers of the Church

Heath, George, an Englishman, was born about 1745. He was the pastor of a Presbyterian Church at Honiton, Devon, in 1770; died in 1822. He was the author of Hymns and Poetic Essays Sacred to the Public and Private Worship of the Deity, and to Religious and Christian Improvement, Bristol, 1781. According to Hatfield, Duffield, and other authorities, Heath "proved unworthy of his office as a Presbyterian pastor and lost his position by bad conduct." He later, it seems, became a Unitarian minister. "It is a striking commentary on his hymn," says Duffield, "that its author should have failed in the very mode against which his stirring trumpet blast ought effectually to have warned him. But let us be charitable and hope that this was one of the fruits of true repentance, for the hymn was published in 1781."