Born: Oc­to­ber 17, 1833, West Hack­ney, Lon­don, Eng­land.

Died: De­cem­ber 23, 1899, Port­sea, Hamp­shire, Eng­land.

Matson was ed­u­cat­ed first un­der the Rev. J. M. Gould, and then at St. John’s Coll­ege, Cam­bridge. Sub­se­quent­ly, he stu­died un­der Pro­fess­or Nes­bitt at the Ag­ri­cul­tur­al and Chem­i­cal Coll­ege, Ken­ning­ton. In 1853, he un­der­went a great spir­it­u­al change. Leav­ing the Church of Eng­land, he first joined the Meth­od­ist New Con­nex­ion bo­dy, then the Con­gre­ga­tion­al­ists. After the­o­lo­gic­al train­ing, he en­tered the min­is­try and held sev­er­al pas­tor­ates, in­clud­ing Ha­vant, Hamp­shire; Gos­port; High­bury; Ports­mouth, and others. His works in­clude:

• A Summer Ev­en­ing Re­ver­ie, and Other Po­ems, 1857
• Po­ems, 1858
• Pleasures of the Sanc­tu­a­ry, 1865
• The In­ner Life, 1866
• Sac­red Lyr­ics, 1870
• Three Sup­ple­ment­al Hymns, 1872
• The World R­edeemed, 1881

Sources

Hymns

1. Father of All, Whose Wondrous Power
2. Glory, Glory to God in the Highest
3. God Is in His Temple
4. I’m But a Little Child
5. In Whom Shall I Find Comfort?
6. Lord, I Was Blind
7. O Blessed Life, the Heart at Rest
8. Teach Me, O Lord, Thy Ho­ly Way