Scripture Verse

Introduction

Anecdote

Written…short­ly be­fore his death, this was the last hymn I heard Mr. Bliss sing. It was at a meet­ing in Far­well Hall in Chi­ca­go [Il­li­nois], con­duct­ed by Hen­ry Moore­house.

A few weeks be­fore his death Mr. Bliss vis­it­ed the State pri­son at Jack­son, Mi­chi­gan, where, af­ter a ve­ry touch­ing ad­dress on The Man of Sor­rows, he sang this hymn with great ef­fect. Ma­ny of the pris­on­ers dat­ed their con­ver­sion from that day.

When Mr. Moo­dy and I were in Pa­ris, hold­ing meet­ings in the old church which Na­po­le­on had grant­ed to the Ev­an­gel­i­cals, I fre­quent­ly sang this hymn as a so­lo, ask­ing the con­gre­ga­tion to join in the sing­le phrase, Hal­le­lu­jah, what a Sav­iour, which they did with splen­did ef­fect.

It is said that the word Hal­le­lu­jah is the same in all lan­guag­es. It seems as though God had pre­pared it for the great ju­bi­lee of hea­ven, when all his child­ren shall have been ga­thered home to sing Hal­le­lu­jah to the Lamb!

Sankey, pp. 146–47