As the dew from heaven distilling

Written by Thomas Kelly, this hymn on divine worship is based on Deuteronomy 32:2 and was first published in the original edition of his Hymns on Various Passages of Scripture (1804, No. 91) in two stanzas of eight lines. For reasons unstated by the author, Kelly omitted this text from all subsequent editions of his hymnal, though it was preserved in other collections such as the Baptist Psalms and Hymns (1858 and 1880). In Peter Maurice's Choral Hymn Book (1861), the composition was mistakenly attributed to an author named Gwyther. A modified version of the text was prepared by John Bulmer for his Hymns Original and Selected (1835), featuring an altered third line reading "Richly unto all fulfilling" in place of Kelly's original line "And revives it, thus fulfilling." Bulmer's revised text was widely adopted in modern editions of John Rippon's Selection and Clement Snepp's Songs of Grace and Glory, usually bearing the dual authorial attribution of Thomas Kelly and John Bulmer.