George Jonathan Story

“ Never did uninspired man write, in so few words, so much sound divinity, so much of deep feeling, so much of fervent praise, so much of earnest piety, combined with so much of gratitude, as is embodied in the four lines forming the Doxology written by Thomas Ken. Never was a stanza of human composition translated into so many languages, understood by so many nations, and sung by so many millions of mankind, as that Doxology. It suits all men, all climes, all time, all circumstances and conditions, and often expresses what the heart feels too deeply to be put in any other form of words. ”

“ THOMAS KEN, D.D., A SKETCH.
There is a soothing as well as a saving influence in religion; and when godliness finds appropriate utterance in poetry, no matter how modest and simple those utterances may be, doctrines find their way to the heart so readily, and sympathy and affection are so easily awakened and secured, it is not wonderful that so many devout persons should have embodied their religious hopes and fears, their opinions and sentiments, as well as their experience, in sacred song. ”

“ These first appeared in a volume in 1697, and again in the eighth edition of the Manual of Prayer in 1700. So highly was the Bishop esteemed, that no less than five different works had their sales promoted by surreptitiously inserting his name on their title-pages; the authors having either abridged, or mutilated, or both, the three Hymns of Ken's, and added them to their own lucubrations. This led the Bishop to issue the ninth edition of the Manual in 1705, with the proper Hymns; and to this he added a disavowal of the erroneous and imperfect copies of his Hymns which had previously appeared. ”