Scripture Verse

Introduction

Lyrics

Now I saw in my dream that these two men [Chris­tian and Hope­ful] went in at the gate; and lo, as they en­tered, they were trans­fig­ured; and they had rai­ment put on them that shone like gold.

There were al­so those that met them with harps and crowns and gave them to them; the harps to praise with­al, and the crowns in to­ken of hon­or.

Then I heard in my dream that all the bells in the ci­ty rang again for joy, and that it was said to them: ‘En­ter ye into the joy of your Lord!’…

Now, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in af­ter them, and be­hold, the ci­ty shone like the sun; the streets also were paved with gold; and in them walked ma­ny men, with crowns on their heads and palms in their hands, and gol­den harps to sing prais­es withal…Af­ter that, they shut up the gates which, when I had seen, I wished my­self among them.—Bun­yan’s Pilg­rim’s Prog­ress.

The above ex­tract, wrote Phi­lip Phil­lips, I sent to Mrs. El­len H. Gates, ask­ing her to write a suit­able hymn.

When the vers­es were for­ward­ed to me, in 1865, I seat­ed my­self in my home with my lit­tle boy on my knee, and with Bun­yan’s im­mor­tal dream-book in my hand, and be­gan to read the clos­ing scenes where Chris­tian and Hope­ful en­tered in­to the ci­ty—won­der­ing at Bun­yan’s rare gen­ius, and like the dream­er of old wish­ing my­self among them.

At this mo­ment of in­spi­ra­tion I turned to my or­gan, with pen­cil in hand, and wrote the tune. This hymn seems to have had God’s spe­cial bless­ing up­on it from the ve­ry be­gin­ning.

One man writes me that he has led in the sing­ing of it at a hund­red and twen­ty fu­ner­als. It was sung at the fun­er­al of my own dear boy, who had sat on my knee when I wrote the tune.

And I sang this hymn ov­er the re­mains of my be­lov­ed friend, Phi­lip Phil­lips, at Fre­don­ia, New York.

Sankey, pp. 156–57