With the death of an infant through fever followed by the Chicago fire in the late 1800’s, which destroyed their business, it is true to say Horatio Spafford and his wife were struggling. They got a message from their friend D L Moody, the famous evangelist. He invited them over to Europe to work with him and to take a well earned holiday. They took the advice.
Spafford had a few business deals to finish, so he sent his wife and four daughters ahead on a ship, intending to travel later. The ship sank. Although his wife survived, all four of Spafford’s daughters drowned. On hearing the news, Spafford took the next available ship.
As they travelled past where the first ship had gone down, the Captain pointed it out to Spafford. Quietly, Spafford left the Bridge, wend down to his cabin and picked up pen and paper. The result was the famous hymn ‘It is well With My Soul’. Here are some of the words:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
The tune has not travelled so well down the years as the words have. Recently, Chris Tomlin wrote the song ‘I Will Rise’, with a direct link to the earlier hymn. Here it is:
This song and video (thanks to Tim Prentice for the video) were used by me in my talk at KingsGate Church on 28th December 08. You can listen to the talk by cut and pasting this link:
http://www.kingsgateuk.com/Media/Player.aspx?media_id=25647&file_id=27986
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