Composition
"Day Is Dying in the West" (1877) was written by Mary Artemisia Lathbury (1841-1913) for the Chautauqua Institution, the influential American adult education movement founded in 1874 on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in New York. The hymn was intended to be sung at the evening vespers service with which each day at Chautauqua concluded, and William F. Sherwin composed the tune "Chautauqua" specifically for it. The hymn became the official theme of the Chautauqua movement and is still sung at the opening of Chautauqua's evening program.
Biblical Text
Psalm 104:19-23 - "He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down... The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens" - provides the natural imagery of the daily cycle that the hymn celebrates. The sun's setting is not merely a physical event but a liturgical one: the movement from day to night is a natural vespers, the creation observing its own form of evening prayer.
Malachi 1:11 - "For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering" - frames the entire daily cycle as a liturgical movement from morning praise to evening offering: the whole earth is a temple in which morning and evening are the two daily sacrifices.
Creator and Legacy
Lathbury was known at Chautauqua as "the Laureate of Chautauqua" and wrote both the evening hymn and the "Bread of Life" hymn that became Chautauqua standards. The Chautauqua Institution was one of the most significant adult education movements in American history, reaching hundreds of thousands of Americans annually at its peak in the early 20th century with lectures, concerts, and educational programs. The evening hymn's association with this movement gave it a specific social and cultural context that shapes its use: it is a hymn of communal closure, of shared transition from the activity of the day to the contemplation of the evening.