Farrar’s fa­ther, a miss­ion­a­ry to In­dia, later be­came Rec­tor at Sideup, Kent, Eng­land. Farrar at­tend­ed King Wil­liam’s Coll­ege on the Isle of Man, and King’s Coll­ege, Lon­don. In 1852, he won a schol­ar­ship to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don, where he earned his ba­che­lor’s de­gree. He then went to Trin­i­ty Coll­ege at Camb­ridge where he took a num­ber of hon­ors, in­clud­ing the Chan­cel­lor’s Prize in Eng­lish verse. In 1854, he grad­u­at­ed with first class class­i­cal hon­ors and took Ho­ly Or­ders. For a while he served as as­sist­ant mas­ter at Har­row School. In 1869, he was ap­point­ed a Chap­lain to Queen Vic­tor­ia, From 1871-1876, he was head­mas­ter of Marl­bo­rough Coll­ege. He then went on to be­come a Ca­non of West­minster Ab­bey, Rec­tor of St. Mar­ga­ret’s, West­min­ster, Arch­dea­con of West­min­ster, and Dean of Can­ter­bury.

Farrar achieved a high rep­u­ta­tion as a writ­er and preach­er. He wrote some vol­umes of pop­u­lar fic­tion, and sev­er­al im­port­ant works in phi­lol­o­gy and the­ol­o­gy. His works inc­lude:

• Eric: or, Lit­tle by Lit­tle (New York: Rudd & Carle­ton, 1859)
• Julian Home, a Tale of Coll­ege Life (New York: M. Doo­la­dy, 1866)
• The Life of Christ (New York: E. P. Dut­ton & Com­pa­ny, 1884)
• Life and Work of St. Paul

Sources

Lyrics

1. Father, Be­fore Thy Throne of Light
2. God and Father, Great and Ho­ly
3. In the Fields with Their Flocks Abid­ing