Wednesday, March 12, 2025

It is the 12th of March 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Let’s talk about church music. I was personally catechized (taught the faith) by the hymns we sang at the youth group of Irvine Presbyterian Church. “Rock of Ages,” “Abide with Me,” and “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus” are amongst the hymns that to this day I can recite by heart and began to teach me the gospel. And yes, the preachers and teachers are important, but I am certainly not alone in that, many of the ideas that stuck with me, “stuck” because they were lyrical, rhyming, and set to music.

What I didn’t know at the time was that these and many of the other hymns I learned were a product of the golden age of evangelical hymnody- songs designed not necessarily for the orchestra and chorale but for the parish church with a small organ or piano and for Gospel service sing-a-longs with non-professional singers. And it was in this “golden age” of English hymnody that we see a parallel that hit popular music in the following century: the singer/songwriter, that person who could write both lyrics AND music. Giants like Wesley’s and Isaac Watts to Fanny Crosby and James Montgomery rarely wrote lyrics and melodies.

Enter Robert Lowry, born on this, the 12th of March in 1826 to Elizabeth and Crozier Lowry- immigrants from Ireland. He was raised in the Associate Presbyterian Church but claimed a conversion at the age of 17 when he entered the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia and was baptized by George Ode, himself an author of a few hymns.

Lowry went to the University at Lewisburg, initially a Baptist institution, today Bucknell University. He graduated in 1854 and was ordained into the ministry where he served parishes on the East Coast before returning to Lewisburg to teach. In his own day he was considered one of the finest orators and preachers, his writing of hymns and melodies, he considered a side avocation. He said ““I would rather preach a gospel sermon to an appreciative, receptive congregation than write a hymn,” but it is ironically his hymns for which he is most famous today. With his finger on the popular hymnody of his day, he took to writing both lyrics and melodies for his own works, his most famous being “Shall we gather at the River”. The famous hymn, which ranks as one of the most popular and recorded hymns in the English language, was inspired amidst a heatwave and fever epidemic, in which he was exhausted ministering to the sick. Reflecting on Revelation 22 and the “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God,” and composed both the lyrics and melody, asked which came first. he said he would often sit at the organ, and the two would flow out at the same time. He thought the tune a little too reminiscent of a march and considered it one of his weaker hymns. He believed his best hymn to be “Weeping will not Save Me” though it has lacked staying power in modern hymnals. Another hymn however would become a favorite in the following century, cementing his fame: “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus” based on Hebrews 9:22. This hymn with the refrain “Oh Precious Is the flow, that makes me white as snow” is one of the rare 19th century hymns that has only become more popular in hymnals in the 21st century.

Lowry would write over 500 hymns and serve as an editor for the Biglow & Main, the leading publisher of hymn books in the United States and used his gifts as an editor of some 20 hymnals… so much for a man who thought he preferred preaching and that he would be remembered for his oratory more than his hymnody.

In 2007, a plaque was set up for Lowry at the Sixth Avenue Baptist church in Brooklyn for Lowry, which reads:

“Without a doubt, Lowry is entitled to the double honor intended for those who labour faithfully in the word and doctrine, but it is his contribution to sacred music that won him enduring fame. Early in life, he exhibited a fondness and aptitude for song and, at the time of his death, had gained prominence throughout the world for the many hymns that issued from his pen.”

Dying in 1899, born on this, the 12th of March in 1826, Robert Lowry, giant of American hymnody, was 73 years old.

The Last word for today comes from Lowry’s “Nothing But the Blood” 4 verses and finally the chorus:

1 What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

2 For my pardon this I see: