Origins of Songs

The Solid Rock
1834 A.D.

Edward Mote was bron into poverty on January 21, 1797, in London. His parents, innkeepers, wouldn't allow a Bible in their house, but somehow Edward heard the gospel as a teenager and came to Christ. He eventually became a skilled carpenter and the owner of his own cabinet shop.

"One morning," he recalled, "it came into my mind as I went to labor to write a hymn on the 'Gracious Experience of a Christian.' As I went up to Holborn I had the chorus: On Christ the solid Rock I stand / All other ground is sinking sand. In the day I had four verses complete, and wrote them off.

"On the Sabbath following, I met brother King... who informed me that his wife was very ill, and asked me to call and see her. I had an early tea and called afterwards. He said that it was his usual custom to sing a hymn, read a portion, and engage in prayer before he went to meeting. He looked for his hymnbook but could find it nowhere. I said, ' I have some verses in my pocket; if he liked, we would sing them.' We did, and his wife enjoed them so much that after service he aske dme, as a favor, to leave a copy of them for his wife.

"I went home, and by the fireside composed the last two verses, wrote the whole off, and took them to sister King... As these verses so met the dying woman's case, my attention to them was the more arrested, and I had a thousand printed for distribution."

In 1852, Edward, 55, gave up his carpentry to pastor the Baptist Church in Horsham, Sussex, where he ministered for 21 years. He resigned in 1873, in failing health, saying, "I think I am going to heaven; yes, I am nearing port. The truths I have been preaching, I am now living upon and they'll do very well to die upon. Ah! The precious blood." He passed away at age 77.

Here's an interesting verse from Mote's original that is omitted from most hymnals today:

I trust His righteous character,
His council, promise, and His power;
His honor and His Name's at stake
To save me from the burning lake;
On Christ, the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground in sinking sand.

 

Just As I Am
1836 A.D.

She was an embittered woman, Charlotte Elliott of Brighton, England. Her health was broken, and her disability had hardened her. "If God loved me," she muttered, "He would not have treated me this way."

Hoping to help her, a Swiss minister, Dr. Cesar Malan, visited the Elliotts on May 9, 1822. Over dinner, Charlotte lost her temper and railed against God and family in a violent outburst. Her embarrassed family left the room, and Dr. Malan was left alone with her.

"You are tired of yourself, aren't you?" he asked. "You are holding to your hate and anger because you have nothing else in the wolrd to cling to. Consequently, you have become sour, bitter, and resentful."

"What is your cure?" asked Charlotte.

"The faith you are trying to despise."

As they talked, Charlotte softened. "If I wanted to become a Christian and to share the peace and joy you possess," she finally asked, "what would I do?"

"You would give yourself to God just as you are now, with your fightings and fears, hates and loves, pride and shame."

"I would come to God just as I am?" Is that right?"

Charlotte did come just as she was, and her heart was changed that day. As time passed she found and claimed John 6:37 as a special verse for her: "...he who comes to Me I will by no means cast out."

Years later, her brother, Rev. Henry Elliott, was raising funds for a school for the children of poor clergymen. Charlotte wrote a poem, and it was printed and sold across England. The leaflet said: Sold for the Benefit of St. Margaret's Hall, Brighton: Him That Cometh to Me I Will in No Wise Cast Out. Underneath was Charlotte's poem - which has since become the most famous invitational hymn in history.

Charlotte lived to be 82 and wrote about 150 hymns, though she never enjoyed good health. As her loved ones sifted through her papers after her death, they found over a thousand letters she had kept in which people expressed their gratitude for the way this hymn had touched their lives.

 

Nearer, My God, to Thee
1840 A.D.

It was reported that the band aboard the Titanic gallantly played "Nearer, My God, to Thee" as the great liner sank to its watery grave on April 14, 1912. A Canadian survivor told of being comforted by its strains. Historians, however, have never been able to nail down the validity of the story.

Never mind. It's a great hymn anyway, written by a woman named Sarah Flower Adams. She was born in Harlow, England, in the winter of 1805. Her father was a newspaper editor and a man of prominence.

Sarah herself grew up enjoying the spotlight. She showed great interest in the stage and dreamed of being an actress. In 1834, she married William Bridges Adams, a civil engineer. The couple lived in London where Sarah could be near the great theaters. In 1837, she played "Lady Macbeth" in the Richmond Theater in London to rave reviews.

Her frail health hampered her career, however, and she found herself focusing more on her literary gifts. It's said that she wrote quickly, as if under compulsion; and seldom did editors find anything to change in her work. Among her compositions were hymns of praise to the Lord. Sarah's sister, Eliza, a gifted musician, often wrote the music for her hymns. The two were very close.

One day in 1841, their pastor, Rev. William Johnson Fox of London's South Place Unitarian Church, paid a visit. He was compiling a church hymnbook and he wanted to include some of their hymns. He further mentioned that he was frustrated at his inability to find a hymn to go along with the upcoming Sunday's messge, which was from the story of Jacob at Bethel in Genesis 28:20-22.

Sarah offered to write a hymn based on those verses. For the rest of the week she poured over the passage, visualizing Jacob's sleeping with a stone for his pillow as he dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven. The following Sunday, South Place Unitarian Church sang Sarah's "Nearer, My God, to Thee."

Eliza, who was suffering from tuberculosis, died in 1846. Sarah had faithfully cared for her sister during the illness, but by the time Eliza died, Sarah, too, was showing signs of consumption.

She passed away on August 14, 1848, at age 43.

 

Abide With Me
1847 A.D.

Henry Francis Lyte, vicar in the fishing village of Lower Brixham, Devonshire, England, ministered faithfully for twnety-three years to his sea-faring people.

Though a humble couple, he and his wife, Anne, lived in an elegant estate, Berry Head. It had reportedly been provided by King William IV, who had been impressed with Henry's ministry. At water's edge, its coastal views were among the most beautiful on the British Isles. Henry laid out walking trails through the estate's forty-one acres and enjoyed the tranquility of the hhouse and grounds. There he wrote most of his sermons, poems, and hymns.

But Henry's lung condition hung over the home like a blackening cloud. Lower Brixham suffered long, damp winters, and while in his early fifties Henry realized his lung disoreder had deteriorated into tuberculosis. On September 4, 1847, age 54, he entered his pulpit with difficulty and preached what was to be his last sermon. He had planned a therapeutic holiday in Italy. "I must put everything in order before I leave," he said, "Because I have no idea how long I will be away."

That afternoon he walked along the coast in pensive prayer then retired to his room, emerging an hour later with a written copy of "Abide With Me." Some accounts indicate he wrote the poem during that hour; others say that he discovered it in the bottom of his desk as he packed for his trip to Italy, and that it had been written a quarter-century earlier. Probably both stories are true. It is likely that, finding sketches of a poem he had previously started, he prayerfully revised and completed it that evening.

Shortly afterward, Henry embraced his family a final time and departed for Italy. Stopping in Avignon, France, he again revised "Abide With Me" - it was evidently much on his mind - and posted it to his wife. Arriving on the French Riviera, he checked into the Hotel de Angleterre in Nice, and there on November 20, 1847, his phthisic lungs finally gave out. Another English clergymen, a Rev. Manning of Chichester, who happened to be staying in the same hotel, attended him during his final hours. Henry's last words were, "Peace! Joy!"

When news of his death reached Brixham, the fishermen of the village asked Henry's son-in-law, also a minister, to hold a memorial service. It was on this occasion that "Abide With Me" was first sung.

 

Crown Him With Many Crowns
1851 A.D.

The original form of this hymn was written by Matthew Bridges and consisted of six eight-line stanzas. He thought os his hymn as a sermon in song, based on Revelation 19:12. "...and on His head were many crowns." He called his hymn, "The Song of the Seraphs." Matthew, who once wrote a book condeming Roman Catholics, ended up converting to Catholicism in 1848. He followed John Henry Newman out of the Church of England.

In 1874, Godfrey Thring, a staunch Anglican clergyman feared that some of Bridges' verses smacked too much of Catholic doctrine. Verse two, for example, said:

Crown Him the virgin's Son, the God incarnate born,
Whose arm those crimson trophies won which now His brow adorn;
Fruit of the mystic rose, as of the rose the stem;
The root whence mercy ever flows, the Babe of Bethlehem.

It seems odd to us now that such a verse would cause controversy, but in the end Godrey wrote six new verses for the same song. "Crown Him With Many Crowns," therefore became a six-verse hymn that was written twice!

Over the years, these twelve stanzas have become intermingled in the hymnbooks, with editors mixing and matching the verses. Here are the first lines of all twelve verses, the first six by Bridges, the last six by Thring:

Stanza 1: Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne...
Stanza 2: Crown Him the virgin's Son, the God incarnate born...
Stanza 3: Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side...
Stanza 4: Crown Him the Lord of peace, Whose power a scepter sways...
Stanza 5: Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,
Stanza 6: Crown Him the Lord of Heaven, on with the Father known...
Stanza 7: Crown Him with crowns of gold...
Stanza 8: Crown Him the Son of God, before the worlds began...
Stanza 9: Crown Him the Lord of light...
Stanza 10: Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed over the grave...
Stanza 11: Crown Him the Lord of lords, who over all doth reign...
Stanza 12: Crown Him the Lord of Heaven, enthroned in worlds above...