1814 - 1889 Person Name: Edwin H. Nevin, D. D. Hymnal Number: 75 Author of "Beneath His Wing" in Epworth Songs Nevin, Edwin Henry, D.D., son of Major David Nevin, was born at Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, May 9, 1814. He graduated in Arts at Jefferson College, 1833; and in Theology at Princeton Seminary, in 1836. He held several pastorates as a Presbyterian Minister from 1836 to 1857; then as a Congregational Minister from 1857 to 1868; and then, after a rest of six years through ill health, as a Minister of the Reformed Church, first at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and then in Philadelphia. Dr. Nevin is the author of several hymns, the more important of which are:—
1. Always with me [us], always with [us] me. Jesus always present.
2. Come up hither, come away. Invitation Heavenward.
3. Happy, Saviour, would I be. Trust. This is given in the Lyra Sacra Americana as "Saviour! happy should I be." This change was made by the editor "with the consent and approbation of the author."
4. 0 heaven, sweet heaven. Heaven. Written and published in 1862 after the death of a beloved son, which made heaven nearer and dearer from the conviction that now a member of his family was one of its inhabitants" (Schaff’s Christ in Song, 1870, p. 539).
5. Live on the field of battle. Duty. Appeared in the Baptist Devotional Hymn Book, 1864.
6. I have read of a world of beauty. Heaven.
7. Mount up on high! as if on eagle's wings. Divine Aspirations.
Of these hymns, Nos. 1, 2, 3 appeared in Nason's Congregational Hymn Book, 1857; and all, except No. 5, are in the Lyra Sacra Americana, 1868. [Rev. F.M. Bird, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Edwin H. Nevin