Astonished and distressed

Author: Augustus Toplady

Toplady, Augustus Montague, the author of "Rock of Ages," was born at Farnham, Surrey, November 4, 1740. His father was an officer in the British army. His mother was a woman of remarkable piety. He prepared for the university at Westminster School, and subsequently was graduated at Trinity College, Dublin. While on a visit in Ireland in his sixteenth year he was awakened and converted at a service held in a barn in Codymain. The text was Ephesians ii. 13: "But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." The preacher was an illiterate but warm-hearted layman named Morris. Concerning this experience Toplady wrote: "Strange that I, who had so long sat under the means of grace in England, should b… Go to person page >

Astonished and distressed. B. Beddome. [Lent.] Contributed to Rippon's Selection 1787, No. 40, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines and headed "The evil heart." From Rippon it has passed into several selections, and is found in use at the present time both in Great Britain and America, sometimes in an altered form. Original text as above. A revised version of the text was given in the posthumous edition of Beddome's Hymns, edited by B. Hall, 1817, No. 469. This is not in common use. In some collections this hymn is attributed to Toplady. This error arose out of the fact that Walter Row included it in his unsatisfactory edition of Toplady's Works. [William T. Brooke]

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)