Written by the Anglican clergyman Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847) as the second of three metrical paraphrases of Psalm 103, this beloved hymn was shaped by a defining moment early in Lyte’s ministry: he watched a fellow minister die at peace, trusting wholly in Christ’s atonement, and Lyte later wrote that the experience moved him to "study my Bible and preach in another manner than I had previously done." First published in his 1834 collection The Spirit of the Psalms, the text Christianizes the ancient psalm from its opening line, confessing that we are "ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven" because of Christ, and closing with a cosmic vision of angels and all creation joined in praise. So beloved did the hymn become that Queen Elizabeth II chose it as the processional for her 1947 wedding to Prince Philip, sung to the tune LAUDA ANIMA, composed specifically for this text by John Goss. As the opening hymn of a Sunday given over to thanksgiving, it sets the whole congregation’s praise on the same footing as the healed Samaritan’s: gratitude that flows only from what Christ has done.