Again the day returns of holy rest

"Again the day returns of holy rest" is an eighteenth-century Sunday morning hymn composed by the English poet, cleric, and biographer William Mason.

The hymn was first published in the Protestant Magazine (May 1796) alongside a companion text. Mason designed the pair for liturgical use throughout the Lord's Day:

• Morning Hymn: "Again the day returns of holy rest" (5 stanzas of 4 lines), appointed "Before Morning Service."

• Evening Hymn: "Soon will [shall] the evening star with silent ray" (4 stanzas of 4 lines), appointed "Before Evening Service."

Both hymns were composed in the same meter and shared an identical chorus. Shortly after 1801, they were inserted into the Foundling Hospital Collection as a leaflet, later being incorporated into the enlarged 1809 edition of that hymnal. When published in Mason's collected Works (4 vols., 1811), a note appended to the second hymn recorded that both texts were adapted to an elegant movement by Ignaz Pleyel (from his Op. 23) and had also been set to music by Dr. Charles Burney and Matthew Camidge.

The pair entered general congregational use through John Kempthorne's Select Portions of Psalms and Hymns (1810) and Thomas Cotterill's Selection of Psalms and Hymns (8th ed., 1819). The morning hymn became significantly more popular than its evening counterpart, gaining widespread adoption across Great Britain and extensive use in American hymnals. It frequently appears under the altered opening line "Again returns the day of holy rest," as seen in Hall's Mitre Hymn Book (1836), the Leeds Hymn Book (1853), and the New Congregational Hymn Book.