Lord, we have wandered from Thy way. P. Doddridge. [The Lost Sheep.] This hymn in the D. MSS., No. 62, is undated, but immediately precedes one written on April 10, 1735, and may be dated circa 1735. It was included in Job Orion's edition of Doddridge's (posthumous) Hymns, &c, 1755, No. 65, in 3 stanzas of 3 lines, and again in J. D. Humphreys's ed. of the same, 1839, No. 79. In each case the original title, "The wandering Sheep recovered. Psalms cxix. 176” is retained.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Philip Doddridge (b. London, England, 1702; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 1751) belonged to the Non-conformist Church (not associated with the Church of England). Its members were frequently the focus of discrimination. Offered an education by a rich patron to prepare him for ordination in the Church of England, Doddridge chose instead to remain in the Non-conformist Church. For twenty years he pastored a poor parish in Northampton, where he opened an academy for training Non-conformist ministers and taught most of the subjects himself. Doddridge suffered from tuberculosis, and when Lady Huntington, one of his patrons, offered to finance a trip to Lisbon for his health, he is reputed to have said, "I can as well go to heaven from Lisbon as from Nort… Go to person page >
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