From Everlasting to Everlasting

Author: Harriet Auber

Auber, Harriet, daughter of Mr. James Auber, b. in London, Oct. 4, 1773. During the greater part of her quiet and secluded life she resided at Broxbourne and Hoddesdon, Herts, and died at the latter place on the 20th Jan., 1862. Miss Auber wrote devotional and other poetry, but only a portion of the former was published in her Spirit of the Psalms, in 1829. This collection is mainly her work, and from it some useful versions of the Psalms have been taken and included in modern hymn-books, about 20 appearing in Spurgeon's Our Own Hymn Book, 1866. Miss Auber's name is widely known, but it is principally through her exquisite lyric, "Our blest Redeemer, ere He breathed," and the Epiphany hymn, "Bright was the guiding star that led." (For criti… Go to person page >

Ere mountains reared their forms sublime. Harriet Auber. [God eternal—Man passing away.] Appeared in her Spirit of the Psalms, 1829, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines. In the American hymnbooks it is given in its original L. M. form, as in Hedge and Huntington's Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, and several later Hymnals; and in a peculiar form to suit the music adopted in Church Pastorals, Boston, 1864. From Miss Auber and H. F. Lyte having both published works with the title The Spirit of the Psalms, this hymn has sometimes been attributed to Lyte in error.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)