Words: John W. Car­hart (1834–1914).

One of the green­est spots in my pas­tor­ate in Troy [New York] was the old la­dies’ class, which met…on Wed­nes­day af­ter­noon…On re­turn­ing from that meet­ing one day, I wrote the fol­low­ing poem [this hymn], which was sug­gest­ed by a re­mark of one of the Mo­thers in Is­rael.

This lit­tle po­em, of which I thought no­thing at the time, was pub­lished in The Ad­vo­cate and Guard­ian, the or­gan of the Old La­dies’ Home, New York, and af­ter­wards ap­peared in nu­mer­ous pub­li­ca­tions, and fi­nal­ly ob­tained an hon­ored and per­ma­nent place in a vol­ume of po­et­ry en­ti­tled Cheer­ing Words for the Mas­ter’s Work­ers, pub­lished by An­son D. F. Ran­dolph & Com­pa­ny, New York.

John Wes­ley Car­hart
Four Years on Wheels; or, Life as a Pre­sid­ing El­der, 1880, pp. 135–36

Music: Gold Bar Will­iam T. Ro­gers, 1871 (🔊 pdf nwc).

If you know where to get a good pho­to of Ro­gers (head & shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els),