He did preach, and the hearts of his hearers were full that day, for they seemed to realize that it would probably be the last time they would hear him. The faithful pastor, too, seemed to have a premonition that it would be his last sermon. The service closed with the Lord's Supper, administered by Lyte to his sorrowing flock. "Though necessarily much exhausted by the exertion and excitement of this effort," his daughter afterward wrote, "yet his friends had no reason to believe that it had been hurtful to him." This was September 4, 1847. That afternoon he walked out along the shore to watch the sun as it was setting in a glory of crimson and gold. It was a peaceful, beautiful Sabbath evening. Returning to his home, he shut himself up in his study for the brief space of an hour, and when he came out, he handed a near relative the manuscript containing the famous hymn, "Abide with me." He also had composed a tune of his own for the words, but this never came into general use. During the following week Lyte left his beloved England for Italy. However, he got no farther than Nice, in France, where he was obliged to discontinue his journey. Here he passed away November 20 of the same year. His last words were, "Joy! Peace!" and then he fell asleep. A little cross marks his grave in the English cemetery at Nice, for he was buried there. Every year hundreds of pilgrims visit his grave and tell touching stories of how Lyte's hymn brought them to faith in Christ Jesus. It was Lyte's life-long wish that he might leave behind him such a hymn as this. In an earlier poem he had voiced the longing that he might write Some simple strain, some spirit-moving lay, Some sparklet of the soul that still might live When I was passed to clay.... O Thou! whose touch can lend Life to the dead, Thy quick'ning grace supply, And grant me, swanlike, my last breath to spend In song that may not die! Lyte's prayer was fulfilled. As long as men shall worship the crucified and risen Lord, so long will they continue to sing the sad and beautiful words of Lyte's swan song. In Lyte we have a hymn-writer of the first rank. Indeed, he is comparable to any of England's greatest hymnists, not excepting Watts or Wesley. His hymns are real lyrics, Scriptural in language, rich in imagery, and exalted in poetic conception. "In no other author," says an eminent authority, "is poetry and religion more exquisitely united." Aside from the sublime hymn we have mentioned, Lyte has given to the Church such noble lyrics as "Jesus, I my cross have taken," "Pleasant are Thy courts above," "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven," "God of mercy, God of grace," "My spirit on Thy care," "As pants the hart for cooling streams," and "O that the Lord's salvation." The latter hymn is one of the few ever written that voice a prayer for the salvation of Israel.