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Near To The Heart Of God

• Living in Chicago he received word that both his nieces had died of diphtheria within 24 hours of each other

• He was a Presbyterian Minister and the only place he could find solace was in the book of Psalms

• After studying Psalms he wrote this hymn

• He sang it at the funeral the next day

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William Williams

• Had been preparing for Medical Profession• After hearing the Gospel he became a minister

of Anglican Church– Singing Hymns was his love.

• Wrote 800 hymns in Welsh, yet Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah was the only one translated

• He was a circuit rider preaching all over Wales riding a horse over 100,000 miles preaching and singing

• This hymn compares the 40 year wilderness journey of the Israelites to our pilgrimage journey through this barren land of today.

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Thomas Chisholm• Also wrote “Living For Jesus, O To Be Like Thee

and 1200 others.• Great is Thy Faithfulness was not written because

something great had happened in his life• But simply because over his life he has simply

seen the greatness of God• At age 75 he wrote, due to my health I have never

been able to create wealth but I have seen wonderful displays of God’s providing care and I am filled with astonishing gratefulness for all he has done for me.

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Have Thine Own Way Lord

• Always wanted to be an African Missionary and thought God wanted it too

• She could never raise the funds to go• In a prayer meeting she heard an elderly man

that prayed the following : “It’s all right, Lord. It doesn’t matter what You bring into our lives, just have Your own way with us.” At home that night, much encouraged, she wrote this hymn.

• Later in her life she did go to Africa and spoke to them until she was 75 years of age.

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How Great Thou Art

• Carl Boberg and titled it “O Great God” in 1885• In 1907 it was translated into German and in

1912 into Russian• In 1927 Hine found it and used it in his Ukraine

work and when WWII broke out he brought it back to England and translated it into English and wrote a fourth stanza

• When the refugees from the war flooded into England, all were asking when are we going home and the song answers the question.

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I Love To Tell The Story

• Born 1834 to a wealthy English Family• Her love was to have Bible Studies with

the poor and downhearted and bring them to Christ all over the city of London

• She became ill and had to take off Bible Studies with them for a year

• During this year she wrote a poem, the first part had 50 stanzas and later on Dr. W.H. Doane wrote the song “ Tell Me The Old Old Story”

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I Love To Tell The Story

• From part II of this poem, W.H. Fischer took parts of the poem and wrote this hymn.

• It was very obvious from these two songs that she loved to tell the story of Jesus to anyone that would take the time to listen

• She showed great love and compassion to all who would listen just as her Savior had done

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Softly And Tenderly, Jesus is Calling

• Dwight Lyman Moody, well known preacher lay on his death bed

• Will Thompson comes to visit him• They would not let him in but Moody from

his death bed calls for him• With is dying words he said “Will, I would

rather have written ‘Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling’ than anything I have been able to do in my whole life.”

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