Here, Lord, we offer Thee all that is fairest (tune "Abingdon") - pipe organ, Porthpean Church

Описание: The Victorian hymn "Here, Lord, we offer Thee all that is fairest", to the tune "Abingdon" by James Thomas Lightwood (1856-1944), played by Peter Tylor on the pipe organ at St Levan's Church, Porthpean, near St Austell, Cornwall (NPOR R00025), 14/08/2018.

I last played at this lovely little church - which is in the same parish as Holy Trinity St Austell - back in December 2016. As the church has recently begun to be kept open during the day, I will most probably be back here again before long!

This hymn - written in 1879 for a flower service at St Luke's, Chelsea, where the author was Rector - has been set to a number of different tunes; this one appears at no. 545 in the Wesleyan "Methodist School Hymnal" of 1911. (Its composer was an authority on Methodist music and its history, and was also a keen cyclist; five of his other tunes are in the 1933 "Methodist Hymn Book", although none survived into "Hymns and Psalms".)

Here, Lord, we offer Thee all that is fairest,
Bloom from the garden, and flowers from the field,
Gifts for the stricken ones, knowing Thou carest
More for the love than the wealth that we yield.

Send, Lord, by these to the sick and the dying;
Speak to their hearts with a message of peace;
Comfort the sad, who in weakness are lying;
Grant the departing a gentle release.

Raise, Lord, to health again those who have sickened,
Fair be their lives as the roses in bloom;
Give of Thy grace to the souls Thou hast quickened,
Gladness for sorrow and brightness for gloom.

We, Lord, like flowers, must bloom and must wither;
We, like these blossoms, must fade and must die;
Gather us, Lord, to Thy bosom for ever,
Grant us a place in Thy house in the sky.

(Words by Abel Gerald Wilson Blunt, 1827-1902)