Adams, Sarah Flower

It was not the stubborn, nagging illness she minded.  It was not the pain, the weakness, or even being alone so much of the time.  It was giving up the ambition of a lifetime—seeing her cherished dream come true, only to lose it again, suddenly and irretrievably.
All her life, as long as she could remember, she had dreamed of becoming a great actress.  She had worked and studied and struggled toward that goal, and at last had realized her ambition.  She had scored a dramatic triumph as Lady Macbeth, had been hailed as a great actress, and had looked forward to a successful career on the stage.
But her triumph was brief, so brief!  A sudden devastating illness had made her an invalid, had taken her from the stage and closed that door to her forever.  It was a bitter disappointment.  Being of a deeply religious nature, Sarah Flower Adams had turned to God for comfort and help in her trial, and these past three years had spent much of her time reading the Bible and the lives of the saints and martyrs.  Recently she had turned to writing, mostly poems with a scriptural or religious background, and had become a frequent contributor to magazines and church papers.
Yesterday her minister, Mr. Fox, had come to see her about some poems she had promised for a collection of Hymns and Anthems he was publishing.  She had been silly again, feeling sorry for herself, complaining about her affliction.  The minister had quietly taken the Old Testament from her bookshelves, had opened it to the story of Jacob’s vision at Bethel, and had urged her to read it.  She had read it many times before at his suggestion, and she knew the story almost as well as her own.
Her own!Suddenly she saw the unmistakable parallel between Jacob’s story and her own illness and disappointment.  She saw it so clearly now:  the darkness, the dream, the awakening, the sunshine, the triumph, and the joy.  She knew now why the minister kept insisting that she read it.  She would do more than that!  She would write a poem about it, showing how our very suffering and afflictions may be steps bringing us nearer to Heaven . . . nearer to God.
She was inspired by the theme.  She saw the closed door to her own life’s ambition as “the cross that raiseth me.”  She saw her illness, her disappointment, her loneliness, her pain, as steps to Heaven:  “So by my woes to be nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!”

Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
E’en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Though like the wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness be over me,
My rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I’d be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

There let the way appear
Steps unto Heaven;
All that Thou send’st me
In mercy given;
Angels to beckon me
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Then, with my waking thoughts,
Bright with Thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs
Bethel I’ll raise;
So by my woes to be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Or if on joyful wing
Cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot,
Upward I fly,
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

The poem Sarah Adams wrote that afternoon, out of her own great need and her own great faith, has become one of the world’s most beloved hymns.

“Nearer, My God, To Thee” is today sung universally in homes, schools, and churches, the favorite of millions of people.  It is often sung in times of death or disaster, for it is a hymn of great comfort in the crises of life—a hymn of promise and hope for the grief-stricken and the afflicted.

In the last tragic moments of the Titanic disaster, when the ship was going down carrying hundreds of people to their deaths, the band played “Nearer, My God, To Thee” to the very last, until the surging waters closed above them.  Survivors told later how doomed passengers had knelt on the deck to pray, and how many just stood quietly, without panic, joining in the hymn.

When gold was discovered in Alaska and the hordes of greedy men rushed to the Yukon to get their share, Evangeline Booth knew the Salvation Army would be needed there.  So she headed north with half a dozen assistants, and arrived to find conditions even worse than she had expected.  Vice and lawlessness were the order of the day.  Men were shot down for a handful of gold dust, or for no reason at all.  Five men were killed the day Evangeline Booth arrived.  There were shortages of everything—blankets, food, equipment, clothing—men were quick-tempered and surly, and in no mood for sermons.  But Evangeline Booth knew what to do.  That evening she and her little band stood on the banks of the Yukon River and sang “Nearer, My God, To Thee,” and lonely men began to gather by the hundreds—by the thousands—until nearly twenty-five thousand were lustily singing the hymn!  There was singing every day after that . . . and much less disorder, many fewer shootings.

The hymn was a favorite of martyred President McKinley.  As he lay dying from an assassin’s bullet, friends near his bedside heard him whisper several lines of “Nearer, My God, To Thee.”  It was a favorite also of Theodore Roosevelt, of Harriet Beecher Stowe, of countless others.

Weaving the pattern of her own life story into a familiar scriptural background, Sarah Flower Adams produced a hymn of enduring beauty—a hymn of hope and faith—an inspiring source of comfort to millions.—Lillian Eichler Watson, from Lights From Many Lamps.

Sarah Flower Adams, born in 1805, married William Bridges Adams in 1834. After only fourteen short years of marriage and weakened by nursing her ailing sister she died 14 August, 1848 at 43 years of age.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psa. 46:1).