Lyrics
Savior, again to Thy dear name we raise
With one accord our parting hymn of praise;
We stand to bless Thee ere our worship cease,
Then, lowly kneeling, wait Thy word of peace.
Grant us Thy peace upon our homeward way;
With Thee began, with Thee shall end the day;
Guard Thou the lips from sin, the hearts from shame,
That in this house have called upon Thy name.
Grant us Thy peace, through this approaching night;
Turn Thou for us its darkness into light;
From harm and danger keep Thy children free,
For dark and light are both alike to Thee.
Grant us Thy peace—the peace Thou didst bestow
On Thine apostles in Thine hour of woe;
The peace Thou broughtest, when at eventide
They saw Thy piercèd hands, Thy wounded side.
Grant us Thy peace throughout our earthly life;
Peace to Thy church from error and from strife;
Peace to our land, the fruit of truth and love;
Peace in each heart, Thy Spirit from above.
Thy peace in life, the balm of every pain;
Thy peace in death, the hope to rise again;
Then, when Thy voice shall bid our conflict cease,
Call us, O Lord, to Thine eternal peace.
Public domain hymn text (1866). Words by John Ellerton.
The Story Behind the Hymn
John Ellerton wrote 'Savior, Again to Thy Dear Name We Raise' in 1866 specifically as a closing hymn, intended for the final moments of a worship service.
Each of its six verses opens with the same request, 'grant us Thy peace,' applying that single word across an expanding range: peace on the homeward walk, through the coming night, for the church, for the nation, and finally for the moment of death itself.
Its fourth verse ties that peace directly to a specific Gospel scene, Christ's appearance to the frightened apostles after the resurrection, showing them His wounded hands and side and offering peace in the middle of their fear.
That structure, widening the same word from a single evening's safety to eternity itself, gives the hymn an unusually complete arc for a text originally meant only to close a single service.
The hymn is most commonly sung to ELLERS, a tune composed in 1869 by Edward J. Hopkins specifically for this text, and the pairing became so standard that the tune itself is now closely associated with this closing hymn.
It remained one of the most widely used closing hymns across English-speaking Protestant worship for well over a century, valued for treating the moment of dismissal as itself worthy of careful, deliberate blessing.
