Born: May 7, 1839, Or­wigs­burg, Penn­syl­van­ia.

Died: No­vem­ber 25, 1929, Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois.

Buried: Oak Woods Cem­e­te­ry, Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois.

A min­is­ter’s son, Hoff­man at­tend­ed Un­ion Sem­in­ary in New Ber­lin, Penn­syl­van­ia, and was or­dained in 1868. Af­ter­ward, he worked with the Evan­gel­ic­al As­so­ci­a­tion’s pub­lish­ing arm in Cleve­land, Ohio for 11 years. He pas­tored in Cleve­land and Graft­on, Ohio, in the 1880s; at the First Pres­by­ter­i­an Church in Ben­ton Har­bor, Mi­chi­gan, around the turn of the cen­tu­ry; and in Ca­bery, Ill­i­nois (1911-22). In his life­time, he wrote over 2,000 Gos­pel songs. The 50 song books he edit­ed in­clude:

Sources

Lyrics

  1. Are You Washed in the Blood?
  2. Down at the Cross
  3. Down Low at My Re­deem­er’s Feet
  4. Draw Me Clos­er, Lord, to Thee
  5. Enough for Me
  6. Give Him the Glo­ry
  7. Hallowed Hour of Pray­er
  8. I Must Tell Je­sus
  9. Is It Not Won­der­ful?
  10. Is Thy Heart Right with God?
  11. Is Your All on the Al­tar?
  12. It Is Mine
  13. It Was His Love
  14. Leaning on the Ev­er­last­ing Arms
  15. Lord I Am Fond­ly, Ear­nest­ly Long­ing
  16. Lord Is Com­ing By and By, The
  17. Mother Is Pray­ing for Me
  18. No Other Friend Like Je­sus
  19. O Lord, With­in My Soul
  20. Over the Roll­ing Sea
  21. Power for Ser­vice
  22. Sing of Je­sus
  23. Speed the Light
  24. Vale of Beu­lah
  25. What a Won­der­ful Sav­ior!
  26. Where Will You Spend Eter­ni­ty?
  27. Why I Love Je­sus?