Colossians 3:2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Ray Palmer (1808-1887) is best known for the hymn “My Faith Looks up to Thee.” In his hymn “Away from Earth My Spirit Turns,” the author turns “away from earth” to “feast on heaven’s diviner food.” The Poetical Works of Ray Palmer (New York, NY: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1876, p. 48) dates this hymn to 1833. It is titled “The Bread of Life” and associated with John 6:51.
John 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
The Bread of Life. John 6:51
“If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever” – John vi. 51.
Away from every transient good:
With strong desire my bosom burns
To feast on heaven’s diviner food.
2. Thou, Saviour, art the living bread;
Thou wilt my every want supply;
By thee sustained and cheered and led,
I’ll press through dangers to the sky.
3. What though temptations oft distress,
And sin assails, and breaks my peace;
Thou wilt uphold and save and bless,
And bid the storms of passion cease.
4. Then let me take thy gracious hand,
And walk beside thee onward still;
Till my glad feet shall safely stand,
Forever firm on Zion’s hill.
Ray Palmer born in Rhode Island November 12, 1808, the son of Thomas and Susanna Palmer. He grew up in Boston. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, and later graduated from Yale in 1830. Following graduation, he taught at a women’s college and later entered the ministry in 1834. Pamer married Ann Maria Waud in 1832, and then had a least ten children.
Ray Palmer pastored the Congregational Church at Bath, Maine from 1835 to 1850, followed by the First Congregational Church of Albany, New York from 1850 to 1865. He served as Corresponding Secretary of the American Congregational Union, from 1866 to 1878. Ray Palmer died March 29, 1887. He and his wife are buried in the Albany Rural Cemetery in Albany County, New York. Palmer wrote a number of original hymns, but also translated Latin texts into English hymns.
A tune often connected to Palmer’s text is Olive’s Brow by William B. Bradbury (1816-1868). Bradbury’s tune and its name are associated with the hymn “’Tis midnight, and on Olive’s brow.”
William Batchelder Bradbury was a musician, hymnwriter, editor, and businessman. Many of his songs are well-known, including He Leadeth Me, Jesus Loves Me, Just as I Am, Sweet Hour of Prayer, and The Solid Rock. He was only 51 years old when he died, and was buried at the Bloomfield Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey.
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