“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was a poem for a mother across an ocean
Joseph Scriven, an Irish immigrant in Canada, wrote "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" around 1855 as a poem to comfort his mother in Ireland.…
Tag
hymn history
No tragedy behind it: “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” was written about ordinary days
Thomas Chisholm wrote "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" in 1923, and William Runyan set it to music. Unlike many famous hymns, it was not born from a…
His wife and newborn son died within days. Thomas A. Dorsey sat at a piano and wrote “Precious Lord”
In 1932, Thomas A. Dorsey's wife Nettie died in childbirth, and their baby son died soon after. Out of that grief he wrote "Take My Hand,…
Blind from infancy, she wrote thousands of hymns. Fanny Crosby and “Blessed Assurance”
Fanny Crosby lost her sight as a baby and went on to write more than 8,000 hymns, including "Blessed Assurance", written in 1873 to a tune…
A thunderstorm in Sweden, a church bell, and a translation through three languages: the story of “How Great Thou Art”
"How Great Thou Art" began as "O Store Gud", a poem Carl Boberg wrote in 1885 after a thunderstorm in Sweden. It passed through German and…
The man who wrote “Amazing Grace” once captained slave ships. The hymn is his confession
John Newton sailed in the Atlantic slave trade and commanded slave ships before becoming an Anglican priest. He wrote "Amazing Grace" for his parish in Olney,…
He lost four daughters at sea, then wrote “It Is Well With My Soul” near the place they drowned
In November 1873, the ship carrying Horatio Spafford's wife and four daughters sank in the Atlantic. Only his wife survived. Crossing the same waters weeks later,…