The Stories Behind The Hymns

[turtletwo]

 I'm finding there are amazing stories behind our beloved hymns. Many were born out of deepest sorrow and trials. I would like to share the background on some of them.

I was sure I had started a thread on this, but can't seem to find it anywhere. So if you happen to come across it, can you please let me know where it went to? lol Thanks.

Feel free to join in and post a story of how a hymn was inspired. 

[missmuffet]

John Newton who composed the hymn Amazing Grace. It is a very interesting story.

 https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/john-newton-discovered-amazing-grace-11630253.html

[turtletwo]

25 minutes ago, missmuffet said:

John Newton who composed the hymn Amazing Grace. It is a very interesting story.

 https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/john-newton-discovered-amazing-grace-11630253.html

@missmuffet  Thanks. I just read it now. Excellent!

 

[turtletwo]

The Hymn "What a friend we have in Jesus"-

 

When a lifeless body was pulled from the dark waters of a lake near Dublin, Ireland, Joseph Scriven’s world turned upside down. It was his fiancée, the woman he was supposed to marry the following day. This tragedy – and plenty like it – plagued him most of his life.

But out of his woes came a song that has encouraged millions around the world.

Reeling from the heartbreak caused by his fiancée’s death, the 25-year-old Scriven left his family behind and set sail for Canada, hoping to build a new life in a new land. He filled his days in Port Hope by cutting firewood for widows, giving away clothes and money to the poor, and preaching in Baptist churches.

It wasn’t long before he met Eliza Roche, a friend of a friend, with whom he fell in love. The two were engaged, and a date was set for the wedding. But as unlikely and unthinkable as it may sound, this young lady also died (from tuberculosis) before the two of them could be wed!

To make matters worse, while he was burying his second fiancée, he received news from Ireland that his mother was also sick. Being a man of meager means, he gave his mother all he could: encouragement he’d received from the Lord during his own suffering. The simple poem he composed and sent to her is now one of the Church’s most famous hymns:

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer
Oh, what peace we often forfeit
Oh, what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer

 

But that stanza – and the others accompanying it – now found in almost every hymnal published, was almost completely lost to history. In the fall of 1896, Joseph was stricken with an awful sickness, and confined to bed. A neighbor that had volunteered to take care of him in his plight happened upon a copy of the poem and marveled at its wonderful message. The neighbor asked about its origin and Scriven’s answer revealed his humility: “The Lord and I did it between us.”

Sadly, Joseph Scriven would not survive his dreadful illness. On October 10^th, he rose from his bed in a state of delirium and staggered outdoors where he fell into a small stream and drowned at the age of 66.

The Apostle Paul knew the Jesus that Joseph Scriven called Friend. In Philippians 4:4-7, he wrote:

 

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 

And like the Apostle Paul, Joseph Scriven made this Friend known to others.

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 TURTLE NOTE: I HAVE A THREAD CALLED "Let Us Lift Up The Name Of The Lord-Through Hymns" 

About halfway down page 10- the lyrics to this hymn ("What a Friend we have in Jesus") are posted.

I created a link below for the words to this song. 

I hope some of you will click on it and take a look at the wonderful hymns brothers and sisters here have provided. GBU

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[appy]

What a friend we have in Jesus is one of two old hymns that I heard as a young child.

[B3L13v3R]

The story behind “Have I Done My Best for Jesus?” as told by D. Cloud's site "Way of Life"
https://www.wayoflife.org/reports/have_i_done_my_best_for_jesus.html

"The following is adapted from Alfred Smith’s Treasury of Hymn Stories and other sources.

Edward Spencer was a student at Garrett Biblical Institute in Evanston, Illinois, on Lake Michigan.
On the morning of September 8, 1860, Ed heard the news that the Lady Elgin, an overloaded steamship, had collided with the lumber-hauling schooner Augusta, and had sunk. People were drowning, and nothing could be done because of the heavy waves and strong currents.

Ed ran to the shores of the lake and saw that the situation was indeed serious. People were floating on pieces of wreckage in the waters, close enough to shore for their cries of help to be heard, but unable to swim to safety.

Without hesitation, Ed stripped himself of excess clothing and dove into the rolling waves. He was able to reach the first person, a woman who had clung to a piece of wreckage for hours and was totally exhausted, and bring her to shore. He later said, “Then the struggle began, the huge breakers forcing us towards the shore, keeping us buried much of the time, and the strong undertow tending to carry us back out into the lake. It was a struggle indeed, and I was gaining but little when two tall, stout biblical students, to whom I had signaled, came to our relief” (cited from Josiah Currey, Chicago: Its History and Its Builders).

He repeated this heroic act several more times before onlookers and friends began to say, “Ed, you’ve got to stop. You’ve done all you can. You’ll kill yourself if you keep going!” Ed did not hesitate. He replied, “I’ve got to do my best,” and plunged again into the water. On one trip he was hit in the head and injured by a piece of wreckage.

Ed rescued 17 people in 16 trips in that pitching, rolling storm. After the 16th trip he collapsed unconscious on the shore, unable to go on. He lay there repeating, “Have I done my best fellows? Have I done my best?” All night he battled for his life in the infirmary, continually repeating, “Have I done my best fellows? Have I done my best?”

Ed Spencer had done his best, but it cost him his health. He lived the rest of his life as a semi-invalid due to injuries sustained during the rescue. It was in Phoenix, Arizona, in a humble cottage, that Ensign Edwin Young found him. Mr. Young, Dean of the School of Music at Hardin-Simmons University, had heard his story and heard that he could be found in Arizona. He found a man no longer a robust athlete, but a shadow of the strong man he once was.

During the course of their visit, Mr. Young commended him for his heroic action and asked how he had been recognized during his life by the people who’s lives he had saved that day. With tears streaming down the invalid’s cheeks, he replied, “Not one ever came back to even say thank you.”
It was the retelling of this story that led Ensign Edwin Young to write, “Have I Done My Best for Jesus?”

[B3L13v3R]

“Have I Done My Best for Jesus?”
by Ensign Edwin Young

I wonder have I done my best for Jesus,
Who died upon the cruel tree?
To think of His great sacrifice at Calvary!
I know my Lord expects the best from me.

How many are the lost that I have lifted?
How many are the chained I’ve helped to free?
I wonder, have I done my best for Jesus,
When He has done so much for me?

The hours that I have wasted are so many
The hours I’ve spent for Christ so few;
Because of all my lack of love for Jesus,
I wonder if His heart is breaking too.

I wonder have I cared enough for others,
Or have I let them die alone?
I might have helped a wand’rer to the Saviour,
The seed of precious Life I might have sown.

No longer will I stay within the valley
I’ll climb to mountain heights above;
The world is dying now for want of someone
To tell them of the Saviour’s matchless love.

How many are the lost that I have lifted?
How many are the chained I’ve helped to free?
I wonder, have I done my best for Jesus,
When He has done so much for me?

[marvelloustime]

Hey @turtletwo

I love the hymn What a Friend we have in Jesus.

Thank you for sharing.

Becky.

X 

[unworthyservant]

Many of the old hymns are beautiful and many of the stories are inspiring. What bothers me is the large companies who make millions of dollars compiling and selling them all for corporate profit. Should we as Christians support such endeavors? It would be different if the companies would use all proceeds to do God's work but we all know that's not necessarily the case. Most use the money to pay exorbitant salaries to their execs. The only thing that drove Christ to anger was the money changers and sellers who were profiting from worshiping God. So, I would urge Christians to continue singing God's praise but now that they are free on the internet there is no more reason to support these sinful profiteers. I would implore everyone who trusts in Christ to instead spend that money on helping the poor as He commanded.

Edited August 12, 2019 by unworthyservant

[turtletwo]

What hymn was written by a lovelorn Scottish preacher?

When he was 19 years old, everything looked golden for Glasgow-born George Matheson (1842-1906). A brilliant student, graduating with honors, he was engaged to be married to the love of his life.

But then he rapidly began to lose his sight. The doctors said there was no cure. Turning for comfort to his sweetheart, he was stunned when she fled. She couldn’t be the wife of a blind man, she said.

Matheson’s hymn of love

Twenty years later, on the eve of his sister’s wedding, the shock of rejection resurfaced. By now, Matheson, the “blind preacher,” was beginning to amass attention for his scholarly writing and inspiring sermons, but all the success in the world could not cure his broken heart. Alone in the parsonage that night, 40-year-old Matheson succumbed to “the most severe mental suffering.”

That’s when he composed the words of the hymn “O LOVE THAT WILL NOT LET ME GO.”

This hymn is a celebration of God’s extravagant love, with images of rainbows emerging from rain, joy arising from pain, blossoms springing from dry ground.

Matheson’s hymn celebrates a love that is faithful, not fickle, a love that will endure through the worst of life’s crises, a love in which our weary souls can rest from all the stress.

This is a song of faith sung from parched lips, a vision of healing from sightless eyes.

The preacher later wrote about the experience of shaping the verses while in a wilderness of pain:

It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the impression of having it dictated to me by some inward voice rather than of working it out myself. I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high.

A hymn to heal broken hearts

The world found comfort in Matheson’s verses, and why not?

We, too, fall in love with the wrong people, endure fickle hearts and broken promises. Self-help books pushing new ways to find (and keep) our soul-mates are bestsellers. Sales of romance novels soar even when the economy dips.

The experience of rejection, in all its forms, shakes us to our very foundations and crumbles our fragile egos, even when the world rewards our accomplishments.

Imagining a love that will not let us go seems like the stuff of fantasy, but when we surrender our wounded hearts to God’s love, we know ourselves immersed in its ocean depths. The Sacred flows over and around us.

O love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe
that in thine ocean depths its flow
may richer, fuller be.