I’M GOING HOME
William Hunter, a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born in Ireland in 1811 but came to America as a child. He graduated from Madison College in 1833 and was for a number of years professor of Hebrew and Biblical Literature at Alleghany College.
O JESUS, THOU ART STANDING
William Walsham How, a bishop of the Church of England, was born in Shrewsbury, England in 1823. He graduated from Oxford in 1845 and was ordained to the ministry in 1846. He held various positions in the Church of England before he became bishop in 1888. He died in 1897.
THERE’S A SONG IN THE AIR
Josiah Gilbert Holland was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts in 1819. He was a farmer’s son who had few chances for public education. Yet he succeeded in attending a high school at Northampton for a time and, at the age of 21, he began the study of medicine; graduating with a degree from Berkshire Medical College in 1844.
HOLY, HOLY, HOLY
Reginald Heber, a bishop of the Church of England, was born in Malpas, England in 1783. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he early took the prize for both Latin and English poems. Ordained in 1807 he became the Missionary Bishop of Calcutta from 1823 until his death in 1826.
WE HOPE IN THEE, O GOD!
Marianne Hearn was born in Kent, England in 1834. She was a member of the Baptist Church and was on the editorial staff of that denomination’s religious periodical Christian World. At her death in 1909 she was called “one of the most honored women in the Baptist Church in England.”
TAKE MY LIFE AND LET IT BE
Frances Ridley Havergal was born in Worcestershire, England in 1836. “When fifteen years old,” she once wrote, “I committed my soul to the Saviour, and earth and heaven seemed brighter from that moment.” Highly educated, her knowledge of Hebrew and Greek and modern languages was extensive and her hymn writing skills are celebrated to this day.
BREATHE ON ME, BREATH OF GOD
Edwin Hatch, a Church of England clergyman, was born in Derby, England in 1835. He graduated from Oxford in 1857 and became, in 1867, vice-principal of St. Mary’s Hall, Oxford. He was rector of Purleigh from 1883 until his death in 1889.