Indelible Grace Hymnbook

Godfrey Thring

Born: March 25, 1823, Al­ford, Som­er­set, Eng­land.

Died: Sep­tem­ber 13, 1903, Sham­ley Green, Sur­rey, Eng­land.

Buried: Sham­ley Green, Sur­rey, Eng­land.

Son of Rev. John Gale Dal­ton Thring and bro­ther of Lord Thring, God­frey grad­u­at­ed from Bal­li­ol Coll­ege, Ox­ford, Eng­land. He was or­dained in the An­gli­can church, and was giv­en the rec­to­ry at Al­ford-with-Horn­blot­ton, near Glas­ton­bury. Lat­er, he be­came Pre­bend­a­ry at Wells Ca­thed­ral. While at Al­ford-with-Horn­blot­ton, Thring wrote a num­ber of hymn vol­umes, in­clud­ing:

Hymns Con­gre­ga­tion­al and Others, 1866
Hymns and Vers­es, 1866
Hymns and Po­ems for the Ho­ly Days and the Fes­tiv­als of the Church
Hymns and Sac­red Lyr­ics, 1874
A Church of Eng­land Hymn-Book Adapt­ed to the Dai­ly Ser­vic­es of the Church Through­out the Year, 1880
Church of Eng­land Hymn­book, 1882
His Hymns and Po­ems for the Ho­ly Days and the Fes­tiv­als of the Church, be­came well known. Thring’s bro­ther Ed­ward wrote of this work:

Be sure that no paint­ing, no art work you could have done, could have been so pow­er­ful for good…As long as the Eng­lish lang­uage lasts, sun­dry of your hymns will be read and sung…and ma­ny a soul of God’s crea­tures will thrill at your words. What more can a man want? Ve­ry like­ly if you had had all that old heath­en­dom rammed in­to you, as I had, and all the lit­er­a­ry slic­ing and prun­ing, and been scis­sored like me, you would just have lost the fresh­ness and sim­ple touch which makes you what you are. No, my boy, I make a ti­dy school­mas­ter and pass in­to the lives of ma­ny a pu­pil, and you live on the lips of the Church. So be sa­tis­fied. And what does it mat­ter, if we do the Mas­ter’s will?

Source: The Cyber Hymnal