Introduction

Words: Ma­ry J. Wal­ker, in Psalms and Hymns for Pub­lic and So­cial Wor­ship, 1855.

Music: An­gel­comb Ira D. San­key, 1881 (🔊 pdf nwc).

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

Major Whit­tle gives an ex­am­ple of this hymn’s use­ful­ness, out of ma­ny in­stan­ces: “I was hold­ing meet­ings in Bel­fast. At one of the after-meet­ings I no­ticed a man re­main­ing be­hind when al­most all the oth­ers had gone.

“I spoke to him and found that he was a mer­chant in the ci­ty. He was in much dis­tress about his sins. I showed him Christ the Sav­iour, who died for sin­ners, and tried to get him to ap­pro­pri­ate that Sav­iour to him­self.

“I saw there was a great strug­gle go­ing on in his soul, the pow­ers for good and ev­il evi­dent­ly striv­ing for mas­te­ry. We went down on our knees and prayed. Then af­ter a while he straight­ened him­self up and gave vent to his feel­ings in this hymn, for he was a ca­pi­tal sing­er…

It was a song of vic­to­ry ov­er Sa­tan, and a song of praise to Christ, through whom he had con­quered. From that hour he has done splen­did work for Christ among the worst of men.

Sankey, pp. 171–72