"Abide with Me; 'Tis Eventide"

Episode 21: The history behind “Abide with Me; ‘Tis Eventide”: Martin Lowrie Hofford wrote the lyrics for this much-loved hymn. He was born January 27, 1825, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, a forested hill crown 10 miles west of the New Jersey state line and the scene of many historic colonial and Revolutionary War events. Even as a young man Martin Hofford was drawn to theology—which he studied at Princeton seminary. Harrison Millard, writer of the music of the hymn, began singing in a Boston choir at the young age of eight, and at ten was mature enough in voice and manner to perform in the chorus of the Handel and Haydn society, where he sang as an alto. He spent three years, 1851-1854, in Europe, studying under some of the great masters in Italy. Both the words and the music were written in the years after the U.S. Civil War.