Thomas Ken was born in July of 1637, at Little Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, England. His parents died when he was only nine years old, and his sister and brother-in-law, Ann and Izaak Walton raised him. He was educated at Winchester College and Hart Hall, Oxford. He completed his BA degree in 1661 and his MA degree in 1664. In 1662, he was ordained and served as curate of Little Easton in Essex, for three years, but returned to Winchester as domestic chaplain to Bishop Morley, a friend of Izaak Walton's. While he was there he prepared his "Manual of Prayers for Use of the Scholars of Winchester College, 1674, for the boys of the school. "Awake My Soul," and "All Praise to Thee," were written later and published in the second edition of his "Manual of Prayers." The doxology with which he ends them is the familiar one used most often with the tune "Old Hundredth." In 1679, he went to The Hague as the chaplain to Princess Mary, later Queen Mary, wife of William II of Orange. He was dismissed a year later because he incurred William's displeasure because of his candid criticism. He returned to England. In 1683, he was a member of Lord Dartmouth's expedition to Tangier. Charles II appointed him bishop of Bath and Wells in 1685. Ken dispensed with the customary consecration dinner and donated 100 pounds, which would have been the cost, to charity. Eight days later King Charles II died from a stroke. James II, who succeeded Charles II, was impressed with Ken. He considered him to be the most eloquent Protestant preacher of his time, but Ken was one of the seven bishops imprisoned at the Tower of London, for refusing to read at the King's command the "Declaration Of Indulgence." His friend and colleague took Ken into his home at Longleat, Wiltshire, where he lived until his death on March 19, 1711. Queen Anne offered to restore him to the diocese, but he declined the appointment. The following poem shows the respect the "Churchmen" had for this remarkable man: "Dead to all else, alive to God alone, KEN, the confessor meek, abandons power, Palace, and mitre, and cathedral throne, (A shroud alone reserved), and, in the bower Of meditation, hollows every hour, With prison, and strews in life's decline, With pale hand, o'er his evening path, by flower, O Poetry! pouring the lay divine In tributary love, before Jehovah' s shrine."

He was a conscientious and fearless bishop whose verse has been included in every English language hymnal since it was first published 300 years ago. James Montgomery has said of Bishop Ken: "Bishop Ken has laid the Church of Christ under abiding obligations by his three hymns, "Morning," "Evening," and "Midnight." Had he endowed three hospitals, he might have been less a benefactor to posterity....The well-known doxology, "Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow," is a masterpiece at once of amplification and compression." Bishop Ken was held in very high esteem. Besides his "Manual of Prayers, Ken published "An Exposition of the Church Catechism," 1685, "Directions for Prayer," 1685, "Prayers for the use of all Persons who come to the Bath for Cure," 1692, "Expostuloria; or Complaints of the Church of England." All his verse is in four volumes which was published in 1721.

The LBW text is taken from the two version's of Thomas Ken's "Evening Hymn" that was published in 1696 and 1709.

Notes from The Hymnuts