Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve

Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve. Philip Doddridge. [Confirmation / Christian Race.] This celebrated hymn on pressing forward in the Christian life was written by Philip Doddridge. Although absent from the original "Doddridge Manuscripts," it was first published posthumously by his friend Job Orton in Hymns Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures (1755, No. 296) under the title "Pressing on in the Christian Race." The original text consists of 5 stanzas of 4 lines. It was reprinted in all subsequent editions of Doddridge's hymns, as well as in John Doddridge Humphreys's edition of 1839.

One of the earliest hymnals to include the piece was Caleb Evans and John Ash's Bristol Collection (1769, No. 281), which omitted the fourth stanza beginning "That prize, with peerless glories bright." From that point forward, the hymn entered general use in both Great Britain and America, being favored particularly in Church of England collections. In E. H. Bickersteth's Hymnal Companion (No. 452), the four-stanza form is specially recommended for Confirmation services, to be sung following the benedictory prayer "Defend, O Lord, this Thy servant." A Latin translation in four stanzas, beginning "Sursum, mens mea! Strenue", was prepared by the Reverend Richard Bingham and published in his Hymnologia Christiana Latina (1871). A slightly modified version starting "Awake, our souls, awake from sloth" also appeared in Walker's Cheltenham Collection (1855).