Introduction

Words & Mu­sic: Phi­lip P. Bliss, 1874 (🔊 pdf nwc).

I car­ried that song through two sea­sons of evan­gel­is­tic work, nev­er think­ing it pos­sessed much mer­it, or that it had the el­e­ment of spe­cial use­ful­ness, par­ti­cu­lar­ly for so­lo pur­pos­es.

It oc­curred to me to try it one day dur­ing the cam­paign in New Ha­ven, [Con­nec­ti­cut,] 1878 and, with the help of Mrs. Steb­bins, we sang it as a du­et. To our sur­prise the song was re­ceived with the great­est en­thu­si­asm and from that time on to the close of the meet­ings was the fa­vor­ite of all the hymns used.

As an il­lus­tra­tion of the hold it got up­on the peo­ple all about that se­ction of the coun­try, I re­ceived a let­ter from the Sec­re­tary of the Con­nec­ti­cut State Sun­day School As­so­cia­tion of­fer­ing me what seemed an ab­surd­ly large sum of mo­ney, if I would, with Mrs. Steb­bins, come to the State Con­ven­tion and sing that one song.

George C. Steb­bins
Mem­oirs and Rem­inis­cenc­es