SOME REDEMPTION HYMNAL AND THEIR WRITERS
The numbers of the hymns follow the pattern of that of The Apostolic Church Nigeria (TACN)
IT IS WELL – RH 527 composed by Horatio Gates Spafford
Horatio Gates Spafford was born in New York, on 20th October 1828, but it was in Chicago that he became well-known for his clear Christian testimony. He and his wife Anna were active in their church, and their home was always open to visitors.
They were blessed with five children and considerable wealth. Horatio was a lawyer and owned a great deal of property in his home city.
Not unlike Job in the Old Testament of the Bible, tragedy came in great measure to this happy home when four years old, their son, Horatio Jnr, died suddenly of scarlet fever.
On 22nd November,1873, Spafford decided his family should take a holiday in England, knowing that his friend, D. L. Moody, the world-famous evangelist would be preaching there in the autumn. Horatio was delayed because of business, so he sent his family ahead: his wife and their four remaining children, all daughters, 11 year old Anna, 9 year old Margaret Lee, 5 year old Elizabeth, and 2 year old Tanetta.
During the voyage, the Ville du Havre sank within only twelve minutes. All four of Horatio Spafford’s daughters perished, but remarkably Anna Spafford survived the tragedy. Those rescued, including Anna, who was found unconscious, floating on a plank of wood, subsequently arrived in Cardiff, South Wales. Upon arrival there, Anna immediately sent a telegram to her husband, which included the words “Saved alone….” Receiving Anna’s message, he set off at once to be reunited with his wife. One particular day, during the voyage, the captain summoned him to the bridge of the vessel. Pointing to his charts, he explained that they were then passing over the very spot where the Ville du Havre had sunk, and where his daughters had died. It is said that Spafford returned to his cabin and wrote the hymn “It is well with my soul” there and then, the first line of which is, “When peace like a river, attendeth my way..”
Horatio’s faith in God never faltered despite all the deep suffering.
REDEEM’D, HOW I LOVE TO PROCLAIM IT– RH 369 composed by Fanny Crosby
Fanny Crosby was born on March 24, 1820 in Brewster, New York. At the age of six weeks old, she caught a cold that led to inflammation in her eyes. An incompetent doctor applied a poultice to her eyes that left her blinded.
Crosby wrote her first poem at the tender age of eight. This was the first poem in what would become over 9,000 hymns Fanny Crosby wrote over her lifetime. Some of her other well known songs include To God Be the Glory, Safe in the Arms of Jesus, All the Way the Saviour Leads Me, Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross, Rescue the Perishing and Blessed Assurance.
From a young age, Crosby learned about the love of God at the knee of her grandmother, who would read to her from the Bible and taught her how to pray.
In the fall of 1850, Crosby was invited to attend revival meetings with her friend Theodore Camp. At first she hesitated, but that night she had a very disturbing dream. In the dream, she had an encountered with her friend”Camp” desiring to see her, when she entered the room and found him very ill, the dying man asked if she would meet him in heaven after their death, she said ” Yes, I will, God helping me.Camp admonished, “Remember, you promised a dying man!” Fanny recorded: Then the clouds seemed to roll from my spirit, and I awoke from the dream with a start. I could not forget those words, “Will you meet me in heaven?” and, although my friend was perfectly well, I began to consider whether I could really meet him, or any other acquaintance, in the Better Land, if called to do so.”
She made her way to the altar on Nov 20th, over the course of the meeting. Crosby was the only person to answer the call that night, as the elders prayed over her.
Fanny felt “my very soul was flooded with celestial light.” She leaped to her feet, shouting, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” In her ecstasy, “for the first time I realized that I had been trying to hold the world in one hand, and the Lord in the other.”
Crosby wrote Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It in 1882.
Once she was asked, “Is there a special hymn written for your conversion experience?” Fanny replied, “I would write many hymns to describe the joy of my salvation. The one that stands out the most to me right now is this one.” She began to sing in her beautiful soprano voice, “Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it.”
COME YE THAT LOVE THE LORD– RH 714 composed by Isaac Watts
The song was composed by Isaac Watts, popularly known as the “Father of English hymnody,” Isaac Watts wrote approximately 600 hymns. He showed literary genius even as a boy.
He was born to Isaac Watts, Sr. and his wife Sarah, who were “Dissenter,” that is, they were not Anglicans, which was a treasonous offence in those days. About the time that Isaac, Jr. arrived, prematurely, on July 17, 1674, the elder Watts was arrested. Sarah reportedly nursed little Isaac while seated on a stone outside the prison.
In time Watts was released and the young couple soon discovered they had a precocious child. Young Isaac took to books almost from infancy. He loved rhyme and verse. At age seven, he wrote an acrostic spelling out the letters of his name.
Watts’ studies in language went far beyond everyday rhymes, however, he learned Latin at four, Greek at nine, French at ten, and Hebrew at thirteen. Noticing his abilities, a doctor and some friends offered him a university education, figuring that he would be ordained in the Church of England. Watts turned them down, instead attending the Nonconformist Academy under the care of Thomas Rowe, joining the Independent congregation at Girdlers’ Hall in 1693. He left the academy at the age of 20, spending the next two years at home.
Frustrated with the heartless psalm singing of his time, young Watts sometimes criticized the singing at his church. Listening to his concerns one day, Watts’ father challenged him, “Well then, young man, why don’t you give us something better to sing?” He rose to the challenge by writing his first hymn. It was well received by the congregation of the Mark Lane Independent Chapel, where he attended, and for the next two years, Watts wrote a new hymn for every Sunday. It was during this time that he wrote the bulk of Hymns and Spiritual Songs. These were sung from manuscripts in the Southampton chapel and were published 1707-1709.
He preached his first sermon at the age of 24. In 1702, he was ordained as senior pastor of the congregation, the position he retained to the end of his life. He was a brilliant Bible student and his sermons brought the church to life.
A short and frail man, Watts health began to fail at a young age. When his friends, the Abneys, invited him to visit their estate in 1712, Watts accepted. He ended up staying with them for thirty-six years, writing many of his hymns on their estate and preaching occasionally as his health permitted.
Watts had become concerned about congregational singing with only grim, ponderous psalms to sing. Wanting to bring New Testament light to the psalms, Watts wrote paraphrases of nearly all of the psalms, publishing them in a hymnal titled Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament.
Watts also wrote hymns that departed from the psalms and included more personal expressions. This literary license did not please everyone and some felt his hymns were “too worldly” for the church as they were not based on the Psalms. Yet Watts felt strongly that the Christian church should sing of Christ. He explained his approach to writing hymns this way:
“Where the Psalmist describes religion by the fear of God, I have often joined faith and love to it. Where he speaks of the pardon of sin through the mercies of God, I rather choose to mention the sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God. Where He promises abundance of wealth, honour, and long life, I have changed some of these typical blessings for grace, glory and life eternal, which are brought to light by the gospel, and promised in the New Testament.”
Watts further explained his philosophy on hymn-writing in his Hymns and Spiritual Songs, a collection of 210 of his hymns:
“While we sing the praises of God in His church, we are employed in that part of worship which of all others is the nearest akin to heaven, and ’tis pity that this of all others should be performed the worst upon earth. That very action which should elevate us to the most delightful and divine sensations doth not only flat our devotion but too often awakens our regret and touches all the springs of uneasiness within us.”
Some of Watts’ paraphrases are still widely sung today. “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” is a paraphrase of Psalm 90, “Joy to the World” is from Psalm 98, “Jesus Shall Reign,” from Psalm 72.
In all, nearly 600 hymns are attributed to him. His hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” has been described as the best hymn in the English language. Other well-loved hymns written by Isaac Watts include “I Sing the Mighty Power of God,” “Jesus Shall Reign,” and “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” After his death, this well-loved writer was honoured with a statue in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.
O MAGNIFY THE LORD WITH ME – RH 42 by Mrs C.H Morris
Lelia Naylor Morris (April 15, 1862 – July 23, 1929) was an American Methodist hymn writer. Her obituary, grave marker, and other sources give her name as Lelia. She is sometimes known as Mrs. Charles H. Morris, as (Mrs.) C. H. Morris, or as (Mrs.) C. H. M., having adopted her husband’s forenames upon marriage after the custom of the time.
Morris was born in Pennsville, Ohio. While still a child, she moved with her family to Malta, OH. Later, she and her sister and her mother ran a millinery shop in McConnelsville, OH. In 1881, she married Charles H. Morris. The couple were active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and attended camp meetings at places such as Old Camp Sychar, Mount Vernon, OH and Sebring Camp, Sebring, OH. In the 1890s, she began to write hymns and gospel songs; it has been said that she wrote more than 1,000 songs and tunes, and that she did so while doing her housework. In 1913, her eyesight began to fail but still get inspiration from heaven to write hymns; her son thereupon constructed for her a blackboard 28 feet (8.5 m) long with oversized staff lines, so that she could continue to compose.
Around 1928, she and her husband moved to live with their daughter in Auburn, NY, where she died. She is buried in McConnelsville Cemetery, McConnelsville.
THERE’S NO ONE LIKE MY SAVIOUR – RH 622 composed by E.E Hewitt
Eliza Edmunds Hewitt (June 28, 1851 – April 24, 1920), also known as Eliza Jane Hewitt, was an American hymn writer, teacher and Presbyterian. She was the author of numerous Christian religious songs. In the beginning, she was active in Olivet Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Later she joined the Calvin Presbyterian Church, where she taught the primary class in Sunday school until her death.
Born on June 28, 1851, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Eliza Edmunds Hewitt was the daughter of sea Capt. James Stratton Hewitt and his wife Zeruiah Stites Edmunds. She completed her school education at the Girls’ Normal School in Philadelphia where she graduated as a valedictorian of her class. She later started teaching at the Northern Home for Friendless Children, but her professional career was cut short by a serious spinal problem, in 1887, caused by a student who struck her across the back with a heavy slate for being disciplined. As a result, she was put in a heavy cast for six months. Though she partially recovered, she remained an invalid for an extended period of her life. During her prolonged convalescence, she studied English literature and started writing poems for the primary department of her church. She soon became a prolific writer of children’s verses.
Despite her health problems, she showed interest in Sunday school work. She began teaching the primary class in Sunday schools. She prepared study materials for Sunday schools and regularly contributed for children’s periodicals.