O Thou Who Changest Not. Reflections on Abide With Me (en Inglés) - Elias Hartwell

On the evening of September 4, 1847, a dying man walked from his pulpit to the sea. He had just preached his last sermon - barely able to stand, his lungs consumed by tuberculosis. He walked alone. When he returned, he carried a hymn.

Henry Francis Lyte's "Abide with Me" has been prayed at more bedsides, more gravesides, and more moments of desperate human need than almost any other hymn in the English language. It was sung at Winston Churchill's funeral. It has crossed oceans and centuries. And it endures because it is honest - because it does not pretend the darkness is not dark, the evening not fast-falling, the helpers not failing.

In this fifteenth volume of the Songs of the Redeemed series, Elias Hartwell reflects on the hymn line by line, stanza by stanza - tracing its roots in Scripture, its anchor in the divine immutability, and its movement from the urgency of human need to the defiance of death itself. This is a book for those in the eventide of grief, illness, or loss. It is for those who have watched helpers fail and comforts flee, and who need more than sentiment - who need the One who does not change.

Change and decay in all around I see. O Thou who changest not, abide with me.