As showers on meadows newly mown

Composed by Thomas Gibbons, this hymn on divine grace and spiritual influence was first printed in 1784 as No. 28 in Book I of his collection, Hymns adapted to Divine Worship, structured in six stanzas of four lines. Founded on the imagery of Psalm 72:6, the text was originally presented under the title "The Divine Influences resembled to Rain." In 1787, the prominent Baptist minister Dr. John Rippon included the text in his influential Selection of Hymns (No. 209). From Rippon's volume, the hymn passed into numerous British and American hymnals, establishing a long-standing presence in congregational worship across North America. In American hymnals especially, the text was frequently adapted by selecting stanzas four, five, and six to form a shorter independent hymn beginning with the line "As, in soft silence, vernal showers," which was also occasionally altered to "As when in silence, vernal showers."