Lewis G. Pray

Pray, Lewis Glover, was born at Quincy, Massachusetts, Aug. 15, 1793. Removing to Boston in 1808, he entered into business there in 1815, and retired therefrom in 1838. He was for some time a member of the City Government of Boston, of the Board of Education, and of the State Legislature. From an early date lie was associated with Sunday schools, and was for 34 years superintendent of the Sunday School of the Twelfth Congregational Society, Boston. In 1833 he published a Sunday School Hymn Book, the first with music ever compiled for American Unitarian Sunday schools. This was enlarged in 1844 as the Sunday School Hymn and Service Book. He also published a History of Sunday Schools, 1847; a Christian Catechism, 1849; and other works. His hymns and poems were collected and published in 1862, as The Sylphides' School, and a second volume of a like kind appeared in 1873, as Autumn Leaves. Most of his hymns appeared in his collections of 1833 and 1844. Putnam (to whom we are indebted for these details) gives in his Singers and Song, &c, 1874, p. 81, four pieces from his volume of 1862, and two from that of 1873. One of these, "When God upheaved the pillared earth" (Silent Work) was repeated in the American Hymns of the Ages, 3rd series, 1864.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)