Heaven Will Bring Me Sweeter Rest: Selected Works of Henry Francis Lyte

In the 1800s, Henry Francis Lyte made his mark in the world of poetry, imbuing his words with hope against all odds. His output of poems and hymns spoke to the common man and the gospel of God.In Heaven Will Bring Me Sweeter Rest, Lyte’s works are presented in all their heartfelt glory. These hymns and poems help illuminate an undying faith in a world beset by darkness. Like many poets of the Romantic Age, his works broke down the wall between the mind and the heart. With an ear towards sentimentality, Lyte manages to avoid mawkishness in these beautifully crafted works.Lyte’s poems and hymns are perfectly suited for devotional use and personal worship. They straddle the line between sentimentality and realism to present a unique view of the world and God Himself. Lyte understood better than most that God is not an accessory meant to adorn our abundance. Rather, He is the life raft we cling to when the clouds darken and we are adrift at sea. Heaven Will Bring Me Sweeter Rest directs the reader to look forward to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Henry Francis Lyte was born in 1793 in Ednam, Scotland. Abandoned by his father,Lyte's childhood was marred by further tragedy when his mother and younger brother died. The headmaster at Portora Royal School took him in, essentially adopting the unfortunate young boy.
            After studying at Trinity College,he took Anglican holy orders in 1815. But a revelation soon led him to convert to evangelicism and his eventual position as a curate in Cornwall, where he met his wife Anne Maxwell. Their union produced five children, two daughters and three sons, some of whom would achieve their own notability as adults.
            Lyte found fame while teaching Sunday school in Lower Brixham, to seamen and their children who often lacked access to religious instruction. But he had achieved some level of success years earlier with the publication of Tales in Verse illustrative of Several of the Petitions in the Lord's Prayer, published in 1826. They were the first of many works,which later included the well-known hymn Abide With Me, written shortly before his death in 1847. While suffering from physical and psychological ailments for much of his life, Lyte's works have stood the test of time and given comfort to those seeking a stronger relationship with Jesus Christ.