[citation needed] The headmaster at Portora, Robert Burrowes, recognised Lyte's ability, paid the boy's fees and "welcomed him into his own family during the holidays".

[4] After studying at Trinity College, Dublin, and with very limited training for ordained ministry, Lyte took Anglican holy orders in 1815 and for some time he held a curacy in Taghmon near Wexford.

Each year Lyte organised an Annual Treat for the 800–1000 Sunday school children, which included a short religious service followed by tea and sports in the field.

[14] Shortly after Lyte's arrival in Brixham, the minister attracted such large crowds that the church had to be enlarged—the resulting structure later described by his grandson as "a hideous barn-like building.

"[15] Lyte added to his clerical income by taking resident pupils into his home, including the blind brother of Lord Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, later British prime minister.

[21] Lyte was also able to identify with his parish of fishermen, visiting them at their homes and on board their ships in harbour, supplying every vessel with a Bible, and compiling songs and a manual of devotions for use at sea.

[29] By the 1840s, Lyte was spending much of his time in the warmer climates of France and Italy, making written suggestions about the conduct of his family's financial affairs after his death.

[30] Lyte complained of weakness and incessant coughing spasms, and he mentions medical treatments of blistering, bleeding, calomel, tartar emetic, and "large doses" of Prussic acid.

"[35] Lyte's first composition was Tales in Verse illustrative of Several of the Petitions in the Lord's Prayer (1826), written at Lymington and commended by John Wilson in the Noctes Ambrosianae.

The hymn also inspired Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener and General Charles "Chinese" Gordon, and it was said to have been on the lips of Edith Cavell as she faced a German firing squad in 1915.

[41] "Abide with Me" has been sung prior to kick-off at the FA Cup Final since 1927 when the association secretary substituted the hymn for the playing of "Alexander's Ragtime Band.

[43] The hymn was also played by the combined bands of the Indian Armed Forces during the annual Beating Retreat ceremony held on 29 January at Vijay Chowk, New Delhi, which officially marks the end of Republic Day celebrations but was dropped by Narendra Modi's government before the celebrations of Republic day events in the year 2022, citing its foreign origin not in agreement with India's ancient republican ideas.

Leon Litvack has written in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography that although Lyte's "poetic energies were directed at scripturally and evangelically minded audiences, his lyric gift was universally appreciated.

The example of ‘Abide with me’ is instructive: intensely personal and contemplative, yet nationally popular—even being sung (always, after its publication in 1861, to W. H. Monk's tune, ‘Eventide’) on secular occasions such as at football matches, and especially, since 1927, at the English cup final.

"[27] The 20th-century hymnologist Erik Routley referred to the "much-loved H. R. Lyte" who "though scriptural and evangelical in his emphases, always writes good literature and is rarely deserted by an exquisite lyric gift.