Scripture Verse

Introduction

Origin of the Hymn

While I was at­tend­ing the World’s Fair in Chi­ca­go[, Il-li-nois], Hen­ry Var­ley, a lay preach­er from Lon­don, said to Ma­jor Whit­tle: I do not like the hymn ‘I need Thee ev­ery hour’ ve­ry well, be­cause I need Him ev­ery mo­ment of the day. Soon af­ter Ma­jor Whit­tle wrote this sweet hymn…[He] brought the hymn to me in ma­nu­script a lit­tle lat­er, say­ing that he would give me the co­py­right of both the words and mu­sic if I would print for him five hun­dred co­pies on fine pa­per, for dis­trib­ut­ing among his friends. His daugh­ter, May Whit­tle, who lat­er be­came the wife of Will R. Moo­dy, com­posed the mu­sic. I did as Mr. Whit­tle wished; and I sent the hymn to Eng­land, where it was co­py­right­ed on the same day as at Wash­ing­ton.

In Eng­land the hymn be­came ve­ry po­pu­lar. Fall­ing in­to the hands of the well-known Rev. An­drew Mur­ray, of South Af­ri­ca, then vis­it­ing Lon­don, he adopt­ed it as his fa­vo­rite hymn. A year lat­er Mr. Mur­ray vis­it­ed North­field [Mas­sa­chu­setts], and while hold­ing a meet­ing for men in the church he re­marked, If San­key on­ly knew a hymn which I found in Lon­don, and would sing it, he would find that it em­brac­es my en­tire creed.

I was ve­ry anx­ious to know what hymn it was, and when he had re­cit­ed it I said to him: Doc­tor, that hymn was wri­tten with­in five hun­dred yards of where we are stand­ing.

For years Dr. Mur­ray had his wife sing this hymn in near­ly all his meet­ings. It al­so be­came a great fa­vo­rite in South Af­ri­ca dur­ing the war.

Sankey, pp. 190–91