Author: Grace Greater than All Our Sin I have partly learned some of my lessons, Some others but dimly I see; I was ever, I think, a slow learner: My Teacher is patient with me; So patient and tender and loving, So gentle and kindly His rule, I care not how simple my lessons, If they are but taught Read more...
Author: I Will Sing the Wondrous Story What do slaughterhouses in Massachusetts have to do with the hymn “I Will Sing the Wondrous Story?” One man. A Baptist pastor. Francis Harold Rowley. Born in 1854, Francis was the son of a medical doctor. He accomplished his preliminary education at the Wilson Preparatory School in Rochester, New York, before graduating Read more...
Author: I Am Resolved Palmer Hartsough was born in Redford, Michigan, on May 7, 1844, to Wells and Thankfull Barnes Palmer Hartsough. Named in honor of his mother’s maiden name, Palmer was raised in a Christian home – his father was very active in the fledgling Michigan Baptist Convention (established in 1836). Palmer attended both the Michigan State Normal Read more...
Author: Trust and Obey If you turn into the main entrance of Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, and make your way east on Westminster Road, you’ll pass the grave of Red Skelton and Elizabeth Taylor. Just after the final resting place of these two famous people is “Section L” – the portion of the cemetery that houses Read more...
Publisher: Go Tell It on the Mountain The fact that we sing “Go Tell It on the Mountain” every Christmas is really a credit to the tenacity of John Wesley Work Jr., a former professor of Latin, Greek, and History at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. In fact, C. Michael Hawn says bluntly: “’Go, tell it on the mountain’ Read more...
Author: The Love of God Were all the skies parchment, And all the reeds pens, and all the oceans ink, And all who dwell on earth scribes, God’s grandeur could not be told. Rabbi Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai Frederick Martin Lehman was born in Schwerin, Germany – a town east of Hamburg about 70 miles and just south Read more...
Author: The Solid Rock/My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less “My Sabbaths were spent in the streets at play. So ignorant was I that I did not know there was a God.” If there ever was a person that could hide behind their upbringing and excuse their godlessness, it was Edward Mote. Born to tavern owners on January 21, Read more...
Author: Jesus Loves Me “You have rendered a real and patriotic service, and on behalf of all our people I desire to express our obligation and our appreciation.” (President Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to Anna Bartlett Warner) Anna Bartlett Warner was born on August 31, 1827, to Henry and Anna Warner on Long Island, New York. Anna and Read more...
Author: I Need Thee Every Hour “Suddenly, I became so filled with the sense of nearness to the Master that, wondering how one could live without Him, either in joy or pain, these words were ushered into my mind, the thought at once taking full possession of me – ‘I Need Thee Every Hour …’” In the Hoosick Cemetery Read more...
Author: Victory in Jesus Eugene Monroe Bartlett, Sr., was laid to rest at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, only two years after suffering a debilitating stroke at the age of fifty-four. Bartlett was quite the musician, having composed several hundred hymns during his lifetime and founding the Hartford Music Institute in 1921. The Institute was driven Read more...
Author: Just As I Am “Then followed a period of much seclusion and bodily distress, from the continuance of feeble health. Her views, too, became clouded and confused, through an introduction to religious controversy, and the disturbing influence of various teachers, who held inadequate notions of the efficacy of Divine grace.” (Sister of Charlotte, Eleanor Elliott Babington, describing Charlotte’s physical Read more...
Author: Leaning on the Everlasting Arms “(Anthony Showalter) was known as an editor, composer, compiler, writer of theory textbooks, song leader, and successful businessman, simultaneously managing three music-related businesses and having interests in lumber (and) insurance …” (The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology) Talk about a “Renaissance Man!” Anthony Showalter showed an aptitude for music, business, church ministry, philanthropy, teaching, Read more...
.Hymn Writer. Served in the First Methodist Church in Cape May, New Jersey for 60 years. He served in the American Civil War in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was also a riverboat pilot on the Delaware River. Cousin of hymn writer Eliza Edmund Hewitts. Author of Beulah Land and Simply Trusting. Simply trusting every day, Trusting through a stormy way; Even Read more...
Written on stationary from the Brevoort House in Chicago, Horatio Spafford penned this famous hymn while on a ship as he crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Not that long ago, his daughters had drowned after the Ville du Havre suffered a tragic crash. His wife telegraphed back, “Saved alone.” The manuscript is now found at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem. Read more...
From FindAGrave: Hymn Writer, Religious Figure. He was a successful businessman in Chicago, Illinois in the late 1800s who lost a great deal of real estate in the Chicago Fire. He penned the famous hymn “It Is Well” after receiving word of the death of his four daughters in an accident at sea on November 22, 1873. Eventually having two Read more...
Although Fanny Crosby spent the majority of her life in Manhattan (growing up at the New York Institution for the Blind, working with the Bowery Rescue Mission, etc.), she did spend the last 11 years of her life in Bridgeport. Using Darlene Neptune’s Fanny Crosby Still Lives as our guide, we took the train into Bridgeport, Connecticut to see if Read more...
Horatio Spafford, well-off lawyer and friend of D.L. Moody lived here on the north side of Chicago. During the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, he lost much of his real estate holdings. A couple years later he sent his family ahead to Europe where D.L. Moody would be preaching. The Ville du Havre sank, and all four of his daughters Read more...
From Daytonian in Manhattan: Three blocks to the north, on Ninth Avenue between 33rd and 34th Street, the New York Asylum for the Blind had stood since 1831. In 1839 it had taken in a 19-year old student, Franny J. Crosby, who quickly was recognized for her talent in writing poetry and hymns. Fanny had been blinded by an incompetent physician at Read more...
Hello… My name is Fanny Crosby. I entered the New York Institution for the Blind as a student in 1835 at the age of 15. I later taught grammar, rhetoric, and history as a faculty member of the school. I published two autobiographies, four books of poetry, and over 8,000 hymns and gospel songs, some of which are still sung today. Read more...
At 26, Herbert G. Tovey wrote the song “Give Me a Passion for Souls” – out of 1,500 songs published under his Sacred Music Foundation, this was the most popular. 1 Give me a passion for souls, dear Lord, A passion to save the lost; O that Thy love were by all adored, And welcomed at any cost. Refrain: Read more...
