Tag: Great Hymns of the Faith

When planning a shoot for our TV/ program, we try to group geographically proximate locations together. It so happened that while planning an interview with the son of Singspiration founder Al Smith, nearby we found a documented site tied to the old spiritual, “The Old Time Religion.” In 1834, the South Carolina Lutheran Synod purchased this building and started a 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...

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...

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...

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...

ROBERT LOWRY MARCH 12, 1826 – NOVEMBER 25, 1899 BORN IN PHILADELPHIA, ROBERT LOWRY WAS CONVERTED AND RECEIVED INTO THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF THAT CITY AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN. ACTIVE IN VARIOUS AREAS OF SERVICE, HE SOON ACKNOWLEDGED HIS CALL TO THE MINISTRY. LOWRY ENTERED SCHOOL AT LEWISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA-NOW BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY. HE GRADUATED IN 1854, 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...

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, administration, 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 to Read more...

Hymn History: Jesus Loves Me & Author: Anna Bartlett Warner “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)   The Origin of the Hymn “Jesus Loves Me” Few hymns in the English-speaking world have 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...

Hymn History: Victory in Jesus & Author: E. M. Bartlett Sr.   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” – Read more...

Hymn History: I Will Sing the Wondrous Story & Author: Francis Harold Rowley “The first element in worship is adoration. The Hebrews expressed this by their posture and not alone my their word. For they prostrated themselves before God. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.” (Francis Harold Rowley)   The Read more...

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...

Moody Church: Many a lost soul has been won to the Lord by wandering over the cobblestones of memory’s lane and hearing again the sweet hymns of the church. When the roll is finally called up yonder, Avis B. Christiansen will find stars in her crown never dreamed of. As poetess and hymn writer, her inspired words have brought easing Read more...

Wikipedia: He composed many tunes, including those for “He Leadeth Me”; “Just As I Am“; “Sweet Hour of Prayer” (attributed to William W. Walford, 1772–1850);[4] “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us” and “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less“, all of which can still be found in hynmbooks and songbooks today. FindAGrave: Born in York County, Maine, the son of Sophia Read more...

From his autobiography: “Aside from the Bible, a few school text-books, and collections of song, I cannot recall a single volume of literature of any kind in our home, until my older brother and sisters grew up. My father was a subscriber to one weekly newspaper, which he would read and lend to some less fortunate neighbor. As the years Read more...

From the Cemetery: Eliza Edmunds Hewitt (1851-1920), Section I, Lot #89-90 Eliza Hewitt was a songwriter who penned numerous Christian hymns. As a young woman, Hewitt taught at a Philadelphia public school, but after becoming ill with a spinal condition, she was confined to her bed. As her health improved, she began to write lyrics to songs, including “Sunshine in Read more...

Authored the tunes to Pass Me Not, Rescue the Perishing, I Am Thine O Lord, Near the Cross, More Love to Thee, Precious Name, Tell Me the Old Old Story, Safe in the Arms of Jesus, and more. Obituary: “Just after he had finished his final musical setting a composition for the last hymn written by Fanny Crosby, noted author Read more...