Eliza Hewitt remained unmarried all her life and suffered greatly after trying to discipline a boy in school. She was an invalid for several months and had to endure a body cast so her back could heal. During this time, she developed a heart for God and children. She also discovered the value of the pen and began writing poems for church and Sunday School. These were soon found by the song writers and set to music. She also began writing Sunday School material to help teachers reach their students.
Once she was able to get about again, she was thrilled and put her endeavors into the Sunday School movement, doing all she could to teach and reach children with the gospel and Christian ideals. At one point she had a class of 200 students in the Presbyterian church where she was a member.
To see her photo and story use the following links. From that page there are links to the hymn stories she wrote.
Eliza Hewitt, songwriter.
We have an article on Theodore Roosevelt, but it needed some more clarification and fact checking. Deborah Macomber, my oldest daughter, did that for us last weekend. She was not able to prove the story about him having his cabinet members search Bibles for the basis of the Monroe Doctrine, but it appears this was not something out of character for him. Can you imagine the last four presidents asking their Cabinet members to come to an emergency meeting to help him find verses in the Bible about an issue that impacts this country? We can only dream of such things, but our Presidents of the past thought nothing of doing such things!
Use this link to find out more: The Extraordinary Theodore Roosevelt.
Well, we have worked on this story for several years, and finally got an edition finished and on the website! Joseph Scriven was an obscure man, but what a testimony he left behind! Because he was willing to stay in his small corner, seeking to exemplify an unselfish and holy life, quietly performing important feats of help to the poor and widows, he left a lasting impression on not only the farming community where he lived, but in the legacy of that private poem for his mother known as “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Almost every week this hymn is requested by those that attend our little chapels, and now the folks have the story to go with it.
We hope this story will help our brethren in Christ! The links are:
Joseph Scriven life story
What a Friend We Have in Jesus hymn story
Well, we have worked on this story for several years, and finally got an edition finished and on the website! Joseph Scriven was an obscure man, but what a testimony he left behind! Because he was willing to stay in his small corner, seeking to exemplify an unselfish and holy life, quietly performing important feats of help to the poor and widows, he left a lasting impression on not only the farming community where he lived, but in the legacy of that private poem for his mother known as “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Almost every week this hymn is requested by those that attend our little chapels, and now the folks have the story to go with it.
We hope this story will help our brethren in Christ! The links are:
Joseph Scriven life story
What a Friend We Have in Jesus hymn story
Well, we finally got back to our hymn story research and writing! The work finished today was a borderline project, since the author was a little wilder in his music of later years than is really honoring to God. He went the way of John Peterson and others like them.
At any rate, the songs Rev. Cleavant Derricks wrote in the 1930’s when things were rough for people in America everywhere, were well received and encouraging! Cleavant worked hard to bringing out a strong proper rhythm, simple wording that is easy to remember and follow, and lively tunes with strong bass parts. He was a prolific writer of songs when he started out and then lost the enthusiasm after serving in World War II as an Army music director.
He decided to settle down and become a Baptist preacher, but his singing kept on going, but not in prestigious or notable churches. Finally in financial straights, he contacted a music producer, asking if he could sell some new songs he would work at writing. They instead did two record albums with him, supplying some much needed income, which was even more important, because it turned out he was dying of cancer.
To use the information in bulletins or other articles for church use, just eliminate the parts not wanted. I have paragraph starts in hopes I will eventually find out more information and be able to expand what was written.
The new article is: Rev. Cleavant Derricks, gospel song writer and Baptist pastor.
Well, we finally got back to our hymn story research and writing! The work finished today was a borderline project, since the author was a little wilder in his music of later years than is really honoring to God. He went the way of John Peterson and others like them.
At any rate, the songs Rev. Cleavant Derricks wrote in the 1930’s when things were rough for people in America everywhere, were well received and encouraging! Cleavant worked hard to bringing out a strong proper rhythm, simple wording that is easy to remember and follow, and lively tunes with strong bass parts. He was a prolific writer of songs when he started out and then lost the enthusiasm after serving in World War II as an Army music director.
He decided to settle down and become a Baptist preacher, but his singing kept on going, but not in prestigious or notable churches. Finally in financial straights, he contacted a music producer, asking if he could sell some new songs he would work at writing. They instead did two record albums with him, supplying some much needed income, which was even more important, because it turned out he was dying of cancer.
To use the information in bulletins or other articles for church use, just eliminate the parts not wanted. I have paragraph starts in hopes I will eventually find out more information and be able to expand what was written.
The new article is: Rev. Cleavant Derricks, gospel song writer and Baptist pastor.
We have been doing smaller fixes and things and forgetting to announce them! We are back and hoping to again systematically build, update and continue transferring old website information to this website!
This week we upgraded the story on J. Lincoln Hall, a noted music publisher, composer and writer, as well as organist, choir master and song leader. His abilities and work was in high demand across the country.
He was a Methodist, so we do not hear much about him today, and little of his extensive work has carried on in use. With the purchase of his publishing company, his many works seem to have fallen out of use.
To learn more about this remarkable man, see our article: J. Lincoln Hall.
There were just a couple changes to the page. Leon Estes wrote commenting that our listing of 2000 hymns is somewhat conservative compared to the numbers knocked around by other websites. His statement does bring up a point I sought to prove. The figures given range from 2000 to 10000, and most today use the higher numbers. Outside the catalogue made while she was alive of probably more than 2000 hymns (taking in consideration her ongoing efforts), no one seems to have tried to count the hymns to come up with a verifiable count. They seem to be very rough estimates based on supposition. If you know where an actual list of her hymns can prove more, I would like to change the number to something higher! But till I find something better, I’ll have to keep the low-ball figure.
We did work up a new photo of Fanny from Sankey’s book and made some formatting changes to help the appearance of the page. I really appreciate Leon’s kind note which called attention to this page! It was nice to revisit what we have on her.
To see her page, use the following link:
Fanny Crosby
Wow! We are so thankful to God and Arthur Luther’s daughter for the opportunity to share these unusual items.
First off, we have gotten the article he wrote called “Cave Men Stuff” so that it is available with a redrawn graphic. You can see this at the following link:
Cave Men and stuff by Arthur Luther
Second, we have just finished processing and setting up eight of the songs he sang with his wife while playing his organ. To be able to hear this blessing of hearing a hymn writer sing hymns, click the following link:
Arthur and Irene Luther sing hymns
A media player has been added to the Jesus Never Fails page that has Arthur Luther singing the hymn with his organ. Use the following link to see this page and hear the music!
Jesus Never Fails by Arthur Luther
There are still several more items to add to this hymn writer from his daughter, so we hope we can get them processed soon!
Chris Jones of with www.brynseionwelshchurch.org in Beavercreek, Oregon, contacted me to let me know about their Gymanfa where they sing the Welsh hymns! I sure would love to go to such an event! Can’t wait to get to heaven to do it there!
He also asked if I could add an RSS link to the hymn story update blog. We took some time this evening and got that added and did some more tweeking of the appearance of the feature. Thanks Chris for the request! Hopefully this will help several others too!
