Ask, and ye shall receive

Composed by James Montgomery on September 10, 1832, this hymn on prayer was based on the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:7–8. According to notes recorded by Montgomery on his original manuscript, he sent copies of the text in manuscript form to several friends and correspondents over a period of years before committing it to formal publication.

The text was eventually included in his volume Original Hymns for Public, Private, and Social Devotion, published in 1853, where it appeared as No. 67 under the title "Asking, Seeking, Finding." Structured in five stanzas of four lines each, the hymn offers an encouraging meditation on the promises of divine audience and answered prayer. Although it was adopted into congregational use in both Great Britain and the United States, its presence in nineteenth-century hymnals remained somewhat limited compared to Montgomery's more widely known devotional compositions.