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In 1872, on a bright June morning, at 37 years of age, Annie Hawks was busy with household tasks in their Brooklyn, New York home. She was thinking about how near the Savior was to her and how impossible it would be to live without the Master, whether in joy or pain. From that the poem came together: “I need thee every hour ….” The words come from the following verses:
John 15:4,5. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”
The next Sunday, she showed the poem to her pastor, Dr. Robert Lowry, at the Hanson Place Baptist Church. He was impressed with the simple poem, and soon had the music for it and a chorus added to it.
On November 20 of the same year, 1872, the new hymn was used at the National Baptist Sunday School Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, and sung by 3000 people. Two years later, Ira Sankey used it for the first time in the east end of London. Thereafter it was used regularly in the large Moody evangelistic campaigns, where it became popular in this country as well as Great Britain, and was translated into many languages and sang throughout the world.
The hymn was even featured in the Chicago World’s Fair, and led to the writing of the hymn, “Moment by Moment” by D.W. Whittle.
Sixteen years after writing the hymn her husband died, and Anne Hawks finally understood why the hymn was so precious to so many people. Suffering such a great loss, the words brought her sweet serenity and peace.
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Sources
K.W. Osbeck. 101 Hymn Stories (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1982) page 26-27.
Logos Hymnal, 1st edition (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1995).
Edwin M. Long. Illustrated History of Hymns and their Authors (Philadelphia: P.W. Ziegler & Co., 1876, Second Edition), Illustrated History of Sunday School Song, p. 63.
Helen Salem Rizk, Stories of the Christian Hymns (Carol E. Whittenmore, 1964; revised, Abington Press, 1986), pp. 17-18.
Ira Sankey, My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns and of Sacred Songs and Solos (Philadelphia: The Sunday School Times Company, 1907), pp. 187-188.
