The early years of the nineteenth century in England were filled with fear because of the constant threat of invasion by the armies of emperor Napoleon, who had brought virtually the rest of Europe under his rule. When he was finally defeated in 1815 at the battle of Waterloo and exiled, the alarms of war were removed. However, a few years later, in 1837, the young queen Victoria, an inexperienced girl of only 18 years, succeeded to the throne amid fears lest she would be unequal to her task. The words of this hymn were then written as a national hymn of prayer for England by the Unitarian minister, John Reynell Wreford.

Wreford was born December 12, 1800, at Barnstaple, a manufacturing town and seaport of northwest Devonshire, England. He was educated at Manchester College, Yorkshire, to be trained for the Unitarian ministry. In 1826 he was appointed copastor of the New Meeting, Birmingham. After five years in the ministry he was compelled to resign because of the failure of his voice. He thereupon opened a school in Edgbaston, a suburb of the city of Birmingham. He translated an essay on the divine origin of the Old Testament, published a history of nonconformity in Birmingham, and Lays of Loyalty in celebration of the accession of the queen in 1837. He also wrote several volumes of verse, mostly of a devotional nature, and contributed 55 original hymns to Beard’s Collection of Hymns, 1837. He retired to Bristol and died July 2, 1881, at St. Marylebone, London.

The tune DUNFERMLINE, which is the name of the town in Fifeshire that was the ancient capital of Scotland, first appeared in 1615 in the Scottish Psalter as one of the 12 common tunes to which most of the psalms are sung.

Its composition has been attributed to John Angus, the precentor of Dunfermline Abbey at the time of the Reformation.

In his Whole Booke of Psalmes, 1621, Ravenscroft named it Dunfermline Tune and set it to Psalm 89. Note that the final two measures are a fifth below the melody of the final two measures of the first score.

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.