Forgive Them, O My Father

Author: Cecil Frances Alexander

As a small girl, Cecil Frances Humphries (b. Redcross, County Wicklow, Ireland, 1818; Londonderry, Ireland, 1895) wrote poetry in her school's journal. In 1850 she married Rev. William Alexander, who later became the Anglican primate (chief bishop) of Ireland. She showed her concern for disadvantaged people by traveling many miles each day to visit the sick and the poor, providing food, warm clothes, and medical supplies. She and her sister also founded a school for the deaf. Alexander was strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement and by John Keble's Christian Year. Her first book of poetry, Verses for Seasons, was a "Christian Year" for children. She wrote hymns based on the Apostles' Creed, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Ten Commandment… Go to person page >

Forgive them, O my Father. Cecil F. Alexander. [Good Friday.] Contributed to the revised edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1875, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and based on the words "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." In 1881 it was repeated in Mrs. Brock's Children's Hymn Book, and is also found in one or two American collections.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)