Category: Christian Education

Annie Sherwood Hawks

by Terry Conley

(1835 – 1918)

Annie Sherwood Hawks was born May 28, 1835, in Hoosick, New York, to Marvin and Carolyn Bradt Sherwood.  From an early age she was an avid reader and poetry writer.  Her first poem was published in a newspaper when she was 14, and many more poems followed in the local papers.  Following her marriage to Charles Hawks, and their move to Brooklyn, NY in 1859, Annie’s life centered around her home and growing family.  She became a busy wife and mother with their three children.  But, she also stayed busy with her writing.  She and her husband soon joined Hanson Place Baptist Church whose pastor was Dr. Robert S. Lowry.  He was a noted hymn writer and composer who encouraged Annie to use her talent for God.  He made the promise that if she would write the words, he would write the music.  This promise eventually led to more than 400 hymns, mostly for Sunday School, being written by Annie with Dr. Lowry adding the music and refrain.  Dr. Lowry was one of the first composers to encourage the use of refrains.  He believed that a refrain helped to remember the song and it also made it easier for the younger Sunday School classes to sing.  Out of more than 400 hymns, the only song Hawks is credited with writing that is still in use today is “I Need Thee Every Hour.” In Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns (1888), the author, H. S. Burrage lists “What Can Wash Away My Stain” as one of her popular hymns at that time.  This song is now published with the word “Sin” replacing “Stain” and is generally credited to Robert Lowry but the song is not included in a list of his popular songs in the same publication.

There was nothing memorable that led to the writing of the hymn.  Annie later wrote, “I remember well, the morning when in the midst of the daily cares of my home, I was so filled with the sense of the nearness of the Master, that wondering how one could live without him either in joy or pain, these words “I Need Thee Every Hour” were ushered into my mind and the thought at once taking full possession of me. The hymn was wafted out to the world on the wings of love and joy, rather than under the stress of great personal sorrow.  It was not until long years after when the shadow of a great loss fell over my way that I understood something of the comforting in the words I have been permitted to write.”

The hymn was first introduced at the National Baptist Sunday School Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 20, 1872.  Reports are that it was one of the most popular songs sung.  A few months later Ira Sankey introduced the song at a Moody Campaign meeting in Chicago during the time of the World’s Fair.  The song was published in the song book, Royal Diadem for the Sunday School, a collection compiled by Robert Lowry and William Doane.  When it was first published, the hymn was headed by a portion of John 15:5, “Without Me you can do nothing.”

Following her husband’s death, she moved to Bennington, Vermont to live with her daughter and son-in-law.  She died there on January 3, 1918, and is buried at the Hoosick Rural Cemetery.

That verse in John 15 is still an appropriate foundation for our life and the personal relationship with God it brings us to.  It is a personal hymn with the phrase “I need thee” repeated 20 times when all five stanzas are sung.  Perhaps that is a reason many old hymns are no longer used in our churches.  It is something very personal to say to someone, I need you.  In this age of having much, we are not taught that God is the supplier of all we have and that we need Him to supply.  Perhaps it is difficult to sing words such as “I need Thee, Lord, I need thee. Every hour I need thee” when it appears we have all we need?

This close relationship with Christ stands in stark contrast to the wonderful hymns based upon God’s mighty acts and the theology of the Trinity.  Perhaps the Christian life exists somewhere between these two poles of praising the all-powerful God and craving the intimacy of a personal relationship with Jesus.

The chorus provides a fitting conclusion to Annie Hawks’ observations, emphasizing the fact that we need the Lord to bless us in this life.

 

“I need Thee, O I need Thee;

Every hour I need Thee;

O bless me now, my Savior,

I come to Thee.

 

Sources

John Julian. A Dictionary of Hymnology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1892)

Ira Sankey, My Life and Sacred Songs (Philadelphia: The Sunday School Times Company, 1907)

Albert E. Bailey, The Gospel In Hymns

Henry S. Burrage, Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns

Charles S. Nutter, Hymn Writers of the Church

History of Hymns, C. Michael Hawn,

101 more Hymn Stories, 1985, Kenneth W. Osbeck

 

 

 

Katherine (Kate) Hankey

by Terry Conley

(1834-1911)

Katherine (Kate) Hankey was born into the family of a wealthy London banker in 1834.  It is not known today of how or when Kate was saved, but her family was active in the influential group known as the Clapham Sect and she was further inspired by the Methodist Revival of John Wesley.  The Clapham Sect was centered around Clapham, a village south of London.  John Newton and William Wilberforce are the most remembered of the group.  Wilberforce became a passionate Christian at the age of 26 after reading Philip Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.  This caused him to realize that he was not a Christian and had never died to himself.  After this decision, he submitted his life to Christ and began to evangelize those around him.  The group preached and taught that our spiritual relationship was not to an historic institution but to God.  They taught that the emphasis should not be on the Sacraments or the Liturgy of the Church, or the esthetics of worship, but on the necessity of a New Birth and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our individual life.  The group included such individuals from other Non-Conformist groups, Quakers, and Independents, but the glue that held them together was their belief in the individual need for a personal relationship in Jesus Christ.

Hankey took this teaching and her belief to heart.  While still in school, she and her sister became active Sunday School teachers in the community.  In her later teens, she started a Bible class for shop girls in London which produced many Sunday School teachers and Christian workers.

Kate also developed a strong interest in missions that happened because of her trip to South Africa to care for and bring home her invalid brother.  This was more than just a passive interest or words, for she later contributed to missions all the royalties from her publications which included Bible Class Teachings and The Old, Old, Story and Other Verses.

Probably as the result of this trip, Kate became seriously ill.  It was during the lengthy period of recovery that she wrote The Old, Old Story, a long poem about Jesus.  The poem, written in 1866-1867, consists of two main parts. The first part is titled, The Story Wanted and was written in January 1866. The second part is titled The Story Told, and was written in November 1866. The complete poem was first published in 1867.  From this poem come two well-known hymns: “Tell Me the Old, Old Story” and “I Love to Tell the Story.”  The challenge is still vital today:

 

The Old, Old Story, Part 2

The Story Welcomed

Let everybody see it,

That Christ has made you free;

And if it sets them longing,

Say, “Jesus died for thee!”

Soon, soon, our eyes shall see Him!

And, in our home above,

We’ll sing “the old, old story”

Of “Jesus and His love!”

 

Hymn Writers of the Church – Charles S. Nutter

The Gospel in Hymns – Albert E. Bailey

The Old, Old Story – Katherine Hankey

 

 

Lydia Odell Baxter

by Terry Conley

Lydia Odell Baxter 1809 – 1874

Lydia was born in Petersburg, New York, September 2,1809, to Jonathan and Mary Odell.  As young ladies, Lydia and her sister came to Christ through the preaching of Baptist Home Missionary Ebenezer Tucker.  After their salvation, the sisters became active Christians and were among the establishing members of the Petersburg Baptist Church which was founded in 1820 and is still active in the community.  Eben, as the Missionary was known, eventually travelled west into Tennessee and Kentucky and was very active preaching the Gospel and establishing churches within the Creek Nation.

As a young lady, Lydia attracted the attention of a local businessman, John Baxter.  They married in 1832 and sometime after that, she led him to the Lord in salvation.  The couple moved to New York City and shortly after the move she became an invalid and often bed-ridden.  This did not stop her from studying the Bible and writing.  In 1855, she published Gems by the Wayside, a book of approximately 265 devotional poems and hymns.  The introduction states her ongoing testimony: “Many of these effusions have been penciled while suffering affliction from the hand of a merciful God;”

Their home became known as a place where Christian workers, preachers, and evangelists would gather to fellowship.  Lydia was particularly interested in the study of Bible names and their meaning, but the most special name to her was the name of Jesus.  Whenever asked how she could be so positive despite her physical difficulties, she would reply, “I have a very special armor.  I have the name of Jesus.  When the tempter tries to make me blue or despondent, I mention the name of Jesus, and he can’t get through to me anymore.”

Her special relationship with her Savior led her to write many hymns and poems but “Take the Name of Jesus With You” is the only one which remains in use today.  Many also know the song as “Precious Name.”  The hymn was written in 1870 and first published in 1871 in a hymnal, “Pure Gold.”  The song was very popular in the Moody Crusades.  The first verse points us to her testimony:

 

Take the Name of Jesus with you,

Child of sorrow and of woe,

It will joy and comfort give you;

Take it then, where’re you go.

 

 

Robert Robinson

by Terry Conley

Born in England, September 27, 1735, Robert Robinson began his early education in an endowed grammar school which included the study of Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Literature.  When his father died, he was apprenticed to a barber in London but he pursued his study of the classics, neglecting his business.  A life-changing event happened during his seventeenth year when he went to hear George Whitefield preach.  His text was Matthew 3:7, and in describing the occasion, Robinson later wrote that “Mr. Whitefield described the Sadducean character: this did not touch me. I thought myself as good a Christian as any man in England. From this he went to that of the Pharisees. He described their exterior decency, but observed that the poison of the viper rankled in their hearts. This rather shook me. At length, in the course of his sermon, he abruptly broke off, paused for a few moments, then burst into a flood of tears, lifted up his hands and eyes, and exclaimed, ‘ Oh, my hearers, the wrath’s to come! the wrath’s to come!’  These words sank into my heart like lead in the waters. I wept, and when the sermon was ended retired alone.  For days and weeks, I could think of little else. Those awful words would follow me wherever I went.”  Finally, he recorded that it was on December 10, 1755, he “found full and free forgiveness through the precious blood of Jesus Christ.”

Shortly before he turned 17, Robinson was released from his apprenticeship.  His employer said Robert appeared to be more interested in reading than working, and in following preachers than in attending to his customers.  He became associated with the Wesleys and their work in London and began preaching in 1758.  He also served as a pastor in several local churches but he had not formally separated from the Church of England.  Rich relatives encouraged him to leave the Wesleys and take orders in the Established Church, but he declined.  It was during this time that his personal study had raised concerns and doubts concerning infant baptism. He chose to be baptized as a believer and became a Baptist in early 1759.  He was asked to preach by the Stone Yard Baptist Chapel in Cambridge (where later Robert Hall was Pastor) but did not accept their pastoral call until nearly two years later, being ordained June 11, 1761.  By all accounts, his stay at Cambridge was a success.  He preached at the Baptist Chapel 2 or 3 times each Sunday. Members of the University and others were regular attenders. He also had 15 other locations in the area where he would preach.

In 1790 his health failed.  He died June 8 while in Birmingham, and was buried in the Old Meeting graveyard there.  Robert Hall prepared his epitaph: “Sacred to the memory of the Rev. Robert Robinson, of Cambridge, the intrepid champion of liberty, civil and religious. Endowed with a genius brilliant and penetrating, united to an indefatigable Industry, his mind was richly furnished with an inexhaustible variety of knowledge, his eloquence was the delight of every assembly, and his conversation the charm of every private circle. In him the erudition of the scholar, the discrimination of the historian, and the boldness of the reformer, were united in an eminent degree with the virtues which adorn the man and the Christian.  He died at Birmingham, on the 8th of June,1790, aged 54 years, and was buried near this spot.”

His one song we remember, ‘Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing’, strikes a chord in our hearts with his heart-felt plea as shown in the original words of verse five:

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

 

Sources: Dictionary of Hymnology; John Julian 1892

Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Vol. 49, Editor: Leslie Stephens

 

 

Avis Marguerite Burgeson Christiansen

by Terry Conley

(October 1895 – January 1985)\

Avis Marguerite Burgeson was born on October 11, 1895, in Chicago.  Not much is known about her childhood or her education except that she spent her life in and around the northern Chicago communities.  She was a modest and retiring woman and sometimes used pen names such as Avis Burgeson, Christian B. Anson, and Constance B. Reid to divert attention from herself.  She attended the Moody Church where her pastor was Dr. Harry A. Ironside from 1929 to 1948.

Born into a Christian home where whole-hearted service of Christ was accepted as the natural thing, Avis became a Christian at an early age.  She once stated that the wonder of salvation in her own life was the source for the beautiful verses that continue to draw others close to her Savior.  As a child, Avis was very influenced and encouraged by her grandmother.  She was a strong Christian woman who loved music and would sing the old church hymns to Avis to pass the time.  Avis began writing poems in childhood with her encouragement and she wrote her first poem at age ten.

Avis joined with the Moody Church in Chicago in 1915 where she met, fell in love with, and married Ernest C. Christiansen in 1917.  He later became Vice President in charge of investments for Moody Bible Institute.  They were eventually blessed with two daughters and despite being a busy wife and mother, she continued to write poetry and hymns.  Avis once said that her hymns had come from her own life experiences with the Lord.

In addition to her many hymns and songs, Avis wrote and published two books of poetry.  The first, His Faithfulness in 1949, and Avis Christiansen’s Most-Loved Poems in 1962.  One of the greatest compliments to be paid Avis was written in the forward to her first book of poetry, His Faithfulness, by her pastor and author, H.A. Ironside: “Avis B. Christiansen is the gifted author of many of our sweetest gospel songs. By means of these, her name is known around the world, for many of the delightful lyrics have been translated into various languages. She is a modest, retiring person whom few got to know beyond the circle of her immediate family and friends. With a very keen apprehension of spiritual realities and a clear understanding of the great truths revealed in the Word of God, her hymns and poems are eminently Scriptural and soul-uplifting.”

It was her involvement with Moody Church that led to her life’s work.  She recorded that on one Sunday morning it seemed that everything that happened or was said reminded her that the talent that she was blessed with belonged to her Lord.  She developed a longing to express His love and blessing which resulted in her first two hymns. One of these was set to music by D.B. Towner, Director of Music at Moody Bible Institute.  It is titled, That Is Far Enough for Me and is based upon Psalm 103 with David praising God that he would not be dealt with as his sins required but as verse 12 states: “As far as the east is from the west, So far hath He removed our transgressions from us.” Many of her early efforts were set to music and sung by The Moody Church choir.

It was during this time that she realized her need for deeper grounding in the Word of God, so she began to study at the Moody Evening School.  Mrs. Christiansen took no credit for her poems.  She was constantly amazed that her words bore such abundant fruit.  She always credited the fact that her songs and poems were doctrinally correct from her study at the school.  This solid, fundamental background deepened her devotion to God and to the work He had given her to do.  Her testimony was: “I have been able, by His infinite grace, to pour out my soul in hundreds of songs of praise to my blessed Redeemer. He speaks through the commonplace things of life, if we are but listening for His gentle voice.  All I need to know of heaven is that Jesus will be there.”

One of her first songs that has remained popular through the years is Blessed Redeemer.  It was written in 1920 and the music was composed by Harry Dixon Loes.  He had studied music at Moody Bible Institute.  After finishing school, he served several churches in the music ministry and from 1939 until his death in 1965, he was a member of the Faculty of Moody Bible Institute.  It very seldom happens in this order, but one day while listening to a sermon about Christ’s Atonement entitled Blessed Redeemer,  Loes was inspired to compose the tune  which he named, Blessed Redeemer.  Not having any idea for appropriate words, he sent the melody with the suggested title to Mrs. Christiansen and asked her to write suitable lyrics to fit the melody.  The completed hymn first appeared in the hymnal, Songs of Redemption, in 1920.  It is one of my favorite songs and it is safe to say that the song has remained a congregational favorite through the years.

 

Blessed Redeemer! Precious Redeemer!

 Seems now I see Him on Calvary’s tree;

 Wounded and bleeding,

for sinners pleading,

 Blind and unheeding–dying for me!

 

Another of her wonderful songs, published in 1961, is How Can It Be?

 

O Savior, as my eyes behold

The wonders of Thy might unfold,

The heavens in glorious light arrayed,

The vast creation Thy hast made–

And yet to think Thou lovest me–

My heart cries out, ‘How can it be?’

How can it be? How can it be?

That God should love a soul like me,

O how can it be?

These are two wonderful, heart-felt songs to bookend her life.  In this song, she alludes to the glorious privilege given to man.  That God should love and honor such poor creations of dust, and to be the crown of God’s creation on the earth, is beyond comprehension.  The music was written by John W. Peterson.

 

Bibliography

www.hymntime.com

www.hymnary.org

www.moodymedia.org

Hymns of Our Faith, William J. Reynolds

 

 

Harry Dixon Loes lived from 1892 to 1965. He wrote and composed many songs and hymns during his career.  He was also involved in creating and writing children’s songs for Sunday School.  The man who wrote the music for Blessed Redeemer is also credited with writing the words and music for This Little Light of Mine sometime in the early 1920’s.  It became a staple of Sunday School teaching across the U.S.

 

John Willard Peterson lived from 1929 to 2006.  Peterson served as an Army Air Force pilot flying the China Hump during World War II.  After the war, he attended MBI and served on the radio staff there for several years.   He graduated from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago in 1953 and settled in Pennsylvania.  He later moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he was President and Editor-in-Chief of Singspiration.  During that time, he compiled and edited Great Hymns of the Faith.  He wrote over 1000 songs, and 35 cantatas including It Took a Miracle, Over the Sunset Mountains, Heaven Came Down, So Send I You, Springs of Living Water, Jesus is Coming Again, Surely Goodness and Mercy, and This is the day that the Lord hath made.

 

 

In Hymns and Songs

by Terry Conley

The first hymn book and hymn writers in America were from England.  The hymn book which landed with the Pilgrims in 1620 was Reverend Henry Ainsworth’s version of the Book of Psalms entitled The Book of Psalms: Englished both in Prose and Metre with Annotations, published in 1612 at Amsterdam.  It is considered by many to be the foundation upon which all other American hymn books stand.  Ainsworth was an English Separatist and a pastor of the English church in Amsterdam.  His version of the Psalms was used at Plymouth, Salem, and Ipswich until the mid-1600’s.  According to historians, the first book published in the new colonies in North America was a song book, The Whole Book of Psalms Faithfully Translated into English Meter, or more commonly, The Bay Psalm Book.  This “song book”, the efforts of about 40 men, was first printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just 20 years after the Pilgrims’ arrival.  So church music had entered the new world, but it was not smooth sailing for hymns and songs in this new country.

Many works were published for and against this new liberty.  One by Reverend John Cotton (Grandfather of Cotton Mather), a treatise entitled Singing of Psalms a Gospel Ordinance, was produced to meet the objection then being made to a metrical version of the Psalms.  The current argument was that the word “singing” in the Scriptures meant nothing more than the attitude of thankfulness and joy in the heart.  Pastor Cotton insisted in his argument that the “singing of Psalms with a lively voice is a holy duty of God’s worship” (p 2).  Also, that “not only the Psalms of David, but any other spiritual songs recorded in Scripture may lawfully be sung in Christian Churches” (p 2).  Church records and writings show that during the latter part of the 1600’s into the early 1700’s music in our churches was almost entirely neglected.

During those early years, most of the congregations could only sing three or four tunes.  But even with so few, they brought about multiple problems. Congregational singing had become by all reports just a loud jumble of noise.  Thomas Walter, an early proponent of bringing order back into church music, was among the first who commented on the predicament with the current music issues in the churches.  In 1721, he published The Grounds and Rules of Music Explained: Or, An Introduction to the Art of Singing By Note. Fitted to the Meanest Capacities.  He noted that,

“the Tunes that are already in use in our churches; which, when they first came out of the hands of the composers of them, were sung according to the Rules of the Scale of Music, but are now miserably tortured, and twisted, and quavered, in some Churches, into a horrid medley of confused and disorderly noises… Our tunes are, for want of a standard to appeal to in all our singing, left to the mercy of every unskillful throat to chop and alter, twist and change, according to their infinitely divers and no less odd humors and fancies” (p 3).  He doesn’t stop there but adds “… one man is upon this note, while another is a note before him, which produces something so hideous and disorderly, as is beyond expression bad.  …and besides, no two men in the congregation quaver alike, or together; which sounds in the ears of a good judge, like five hundred different tunes roared out at the same time…” (p 5).

In an essay written in 1720, Reverend Thomas Symmes asked some questions that are still asked today: “Where would be the Difficulty or what the Disadvantage, if People that want Skill in Singing, would procure a Skillful Person to Instruct them, and meet Two or Three Evenings in the Week, from five or six a Clock, to Eight, and spend the Time in Learning to Sing?” (The Reasonableness of Regular Singing, Boston, 1720 as quoted in Richard Crawford, America’s Musical Life, New York: W. W. Norton, 2001).

Thus, the industry was spawned.  Singers needed songs.  Songs needed writers.  Writers needed publishers. . .  And so it goes.