Epitaph: Gently, my Saviour, let me down

The marker at the grave of Conrad Long (d. 1847) has two matching willows and a delicately carved planter.

The long epitaph is still legible, “typos” and all.

CONRAD LONG
DIED
Aug. 10, AD. 1847
Aged 59 years
& 11 mo.

Gently my Savour, let me down,
  To slumber in the arms of death;
I rest my soul on Thee along,
  E’en till my last expiring brath.

And now the storm of life is o’er,
  And I have entered endless rest,
Where I shall live to sin no more,
  And bless Thy name for ever blest.

When from the dust of death I rise,
  To take my mansion in the skies;
E’en then shall this be all my plea,
  Jesus hath lived and died for me.

The epitaph is from a hymn written by Rev. Rowland Hill (b. 1744, d. 1833), founder and pastor of the Surrey Chapel in London.

According to The Life of Rowland Hill, A.M. by Edwin Sidney (1835), the hymn “was written by Mr. Hill for the comfort of a dying member of his Surrey chapel congregation, who received it a few hours before death.”

Chester Baptist Cemetery, Morrow County, Ohio