Grandson of a Meth­od­ist min­is­ter, Deems be­gan preach­ing tem­per­ance at the ten­der age of 13. He stu­died at Dick­in­son Coll­ege, Car­lisle, Penn­syl­van­ia, in­tend­ing to be­come a law­yer. In­stead, af­ter grad­u­at­ing in 1839, be­came a Meth­od­ist min­is­ter in As­bu­ry, New Jer­sey. The next year, he be­gan work­ing for the Amer­i­can Bi­ble So­ci­e­ty of North Car­o­li­na, and lat­er be­came a pro­fess­or of lo­gic and rhe­tor­ic at the Un­i­ver­si­ty of North Car­o­li­na (1842-48). In 1849, he taught na­tur­al sci­enc­es at Ran­dolph-Ma­con Coll­ege, Ash­land, Virg­in­ia for a year, then be­gan pas­tor­ing a Meth­od­ist con­gre­ga­tion in New Berne, North Car­o­li­na. Short­ly there­af­ter, he be­came pre­si­dent of the Wo­men’s Coll­ege in Greens­bo­ro, North Car­o­li­na, serv­ing un­til 1854, when he re­turned to New Berne. Af­ter the Amer­i­can ci­vil war, he moved to New York Ci­ty, where he ed­it­ed The Watch­man news­pa­per and found­ed the Church of Stran­gers, helped in part by a large grant from Cor­ne­li­us Van­der­bilt. He al­so in­flu­enced Van­der­bilt’s de­ci­sion to con­trib­ute a mill­ion doll­ars to the Cen­tral Un­i­ver­si­ty of the Meth­od­ist Epis­co­pal Church, South (now Van­der­bilt Un­i­ver­si­ty). Deems’ works in­clude:

• Hymns for All Chris­tians, 1869 (com­piled with Phoe­be Ca­ry)
• Scotch Ver­dict in re Evo­lu­tion, 1885

• Hughes, p. 366
• Julian, p. 214

1. Come, ’Tis the Hour to Bow
2. Gloomy, Still Gloomy
3. Good Morn­ing, God
4. I Shall Not Want
5. O, Come to Je­sus Now
6. Oh to Be Rea­dy, Rea­dy
7. To Thee, Most Ho­ly Light
8. What Can Win My Soul from Sin?
9. World Is Wide in Time, The