Words: , 1789:

Holland, in his Mem­oirs of Mont­gom­e­ry, says that af­ter Mont­gom­e­ry ran away from the Mo­ra­vi­an school at Ful­neck, he lived from 1788 to June 19, 1789, with one Lock­wood, at Mir­field, near Leeds. This per­son was a Mo­ra­vi­an. He kept a small re­tail shop, and went by the name of the “Fine Bread Bak­er.” Hol­land says:—

“Of the con­duct of Mont­gom­e­ry behind the count­er we ne­ver heard much; he did not re­main there more than a year and a half; he had lit­tle to do, and still less in­clin­a­tion for the em­ploy­ment, such as it was. While there he com­posed the larg­est part of the po­em of Al­fred, and amongst his small­er piec­es a me­tric­al ver­sion of the 113th Psalm, which, ma­ny years af­ter­wards, was pub­lished, with some ver­bal al­ter­a­tions, in the col­lection [Cot­ter­ill’s Sel., 1819] now in use un­der the aus­pic­es of the Arch­bi­shop of York in var­i­ous church­es in the di­o­cese and else­where.”—Mem­oirs, i. p. 73

This ver­sion of Ps. 113 is on p. 57 of Cot­ter­ill’s Sel., 1819, in 5 st. of 4 l. It was re­published in Mont­gom­e­ry’s Songs of Zi­on, 1822, and is found in sev­er­al mo­dern hymn­books. It ve­ry fre­quent­ly be­gins, “Ser­vants of God! in joy­ful lays.” This is the first line of the last stan­za, and is sub­sti­tut­ed for the orig­in­al open­ing of the hymn. This is the ear­li­est of Mont­gom­e­ry’s hymns to which a date can be giv­en.

Music: Truro, from Psalm­o­dia Evan­gel­i­ca, by Thom­as Will­iams, 1789.