Scripture Verse

Introduction

Origin of the Hymn

When Mr. [Dwight L.] Moody and I were hold­ing meet­ings in Ed­in­burgh, in 1874, we heard the sad news of the loss of the French steam­er, Ville de Havre, on her re­turn from Am­eri­ca to France, with a large num­ber of mem­bers of the Ecu­me­ni­cal Coun­cil, whose meet­ings had been held in Phi­la­del­phia [Penn­syl­van­ia]. On board the steam­er was a Mrs. Spaf­ford, with her four child­ren.

In mid-ocean a col­li­sion took place with a large sail­ing ves­sel, caus­ing the steam­er to sink in half an hour. Near­ly all on board were lost. Mrs. Spaf­ford got her child­ren out of their berths and up on deck.

On be­ing told that the ves­sel would soon sink, she knelt down with her child­ren in pray­er, ask­ing God that they might be saved if pos­si­ble; or be made will­ing to die, if that was His will.

In a few min­utes the ves­sel sank to the bot­tom of the sea, and the child­ren were lost. One of the sail­ors of the ves­sel, named Lock­urn—whom I af­ter­ward met in Scot­land—while row­ing ov­er the spot where the ves­sel dis­ap­peared, dis­co­vered Mrs. Spaf­ford float­ing in the wa­ter.

Ten days lat­er she was land­ed at Car­diff, Wales. From there she ca­bled to her hus­band, a law­yer in Chi­ca­go [Il­li­nois], the mes­sage Saved alone.

Mr. Spaf­ford, who was a Chris­tian, had the mes­sage framed and hung up in his of­fice. He start­ed for Eng­land im­me­di­ate­ly to bring his wife to Chi­ca­go.

Mr. Moo­dy left his meet­ings in Ed­in­burgh and went to Li­ver­pool to try to com­fort the be­reaved par­ents, and was great­ly pleased to find that they were able to say, It is well; the will of God be done.

In 1876, when we re­turned to Chi­ca­go to work, I was en­ter­tained at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Spaf­ford for a num­ber of weeks. Dur­ing that time Mr. Spaf­ford wrote the hymn, It is well with my soul, in com­me­mo­ra­tion of the death of his child­ren. P. P. Bliss com­posed the mu­sic and sang it for the first time at a meet­ing in Far­well Hall.

The com­fort­ing fact in con­nec­tion with this in­ci­dent was that in one of our small meet­ings in North Chi­ca­go, a short time pri­or to their sail­ing for Eur­ope, the child­ren had been con­vert­ed.
…
This hymn was heard by a gen­tle­man who had suf­fered great fi­nan­cial re­vers­es in the pa­nic of 1899, and who was in the deep­est de­spon­den­cy.

When he learned the sto­ry of the hymn he ex­claimed: If Spaf­ford could write such a beau­ti­ful re­sig­na­tion hymn I will ne­ver com­plain again.

Sankey, pp. 168–70