Introduction

Biography

Lehmann was the hus­band of Em­ma Lou­ise Der­my­er.

He emi­grat­ed to Am­er­ica with his fa­mi­ly at age four, sett­ling in Io­wa, where he lived most of his child­hood. He came to Christ at age 11, as he re­lates:

One glad morn­ing about ele­ven o’clock while walk­ing up the coun­try lane, skirt­ed by a wild crab-ap­ple grove on the right and an os­age fence, with an old white-elm gate in a gap at the left, sud­den­ly Heaven let a cor­nu­co­pia of glo­ry des­cend on the ele­ven-year old lad.

The wild crab-ap­ple grove as­sumed a hea­ven­ly glow and the os­age fence an un­earth­ly lustre. That old white-elm gate with its sun-warped boards gleamed and glowed like sil­ver bars to shut out the world and shut him in with the ’form of the fourth,’ just come in­to his heart. The weight of con­vic­tion was gone and the pae­ans of joy and praise fell from his lips.

Lehman stu­died for the min­is­try at North­west­ern Col­lege in Na­per­ville, Il­linois, and served pas­tor­ates in Au­du­bon, Io­wa; New Lon­don, In­di­ana; and Kan­sas Ci­ty, Mis­sou­ri.

In 1911, he moved to Kan­sas Ci­ty, where he helped found the Na­za­rene Pub­lish­ing House.

Works

The ma­jor­i­ty of Leh­mann’s life was de­vot­ed to writ­ing sac­red songs; his first was writ­ten while a pas­tor in Kings­ley, Io­wa, in 1898. He wrote and pub­lished hun­dreds of songs, and com­piled five song books.