Early Seek, and You Shall Find

Author: Thomas Hastings

Hastings, Thomas, MUS. DOC., son of Dr. Seth Hastings, was born at Washington, Lichfield County, Connecticut, October 15, 1784. In 1786, his father moved to Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y. There, amid rough frontier life, his opportunities for education were small; but at an early age he developed a taste for music, and began teaching it in 1806. Seeking a wider field, he went, in 1817, to Troy, then to Albany, and in 1823 to Utica, where he conducted a religious journal, in which he advocated his special views on church music. In 1832 he was called to New York to assume the charge of several Church Choirs, and there his last forty years were spent in great and increasing usefulness and repute. He died at New York, May 15, 1872. His aim was the… Go to person page >

Children, listen to the Lord. [Public Worship.] This is an opening hymn for a children's service. It is given in Dr. T. Hastings's (American) Mother's Hymn Book, 1834, in 3 stanzas of 4 , lines and is there said to be from the “Union Minstrel."

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)