Nearer, My God, to Thee

Sarah Flower Adams

Sarah was born in 1805, in Essex, England.  She and her sister Eliza were the only children of Benjamin Flower, a Cambridge printer and newspaper editor who was jailed at least once for what he printed.  Both daughters became gifted composers and authors.

After her mother’s death, Sarah’s father moved the family to a rural area where they numbered among their family friends the great author Robert Browning. 

Their father died in 1825, and the two young women moved in with the pastor of their church.  Eliza devoted herself to enriching the musical ministry of her church, composing hymns and playing during the services.  Sarah married an author and civil engineer, and while she wrote some hymns herself, her passions turned to acting.  Moving to the Richmond district of London to be near the larger theaters, she performed in some minor roles, then played Lady Macbeth in 1837, with rave reviews.  Frail health put a stop to her acting career soon after, so she again turned to writing hymns and poetry after moving with her husband again to be near her beloved sister Eliza.

Her Pastor approached the two sisters in 1840, frustrated that he could not find a hymn to work with his upcoming Sunday sermon, taken from the story of Jacob at Bethel – Genesis 28:20-22.  Sarah offered to write the hymn herself if Eliza would write the music.  All week long, she pored over the passage, visualizing Jacob sleeping on the ground with a rock for a pillow while dreaming of a ladder reaching to Heaven.  The following Sunday, South Place Church sang this song for the first time:

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, 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, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!

There let the way appear, Steps unto Heav’n;

All that Thou sendest me, In mercy giv’n;

Angels to beckon me, Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!

Then, with my waking thoughts, Bright with Thy praise,

Out of my stone griefs, Bethel I’ll raise,

So by my woes to be, Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!

Or if, on joyful wing Cleaving the sky,

Sun, moon, and stars forgot, Upward I’ll fly,

Still all my song shall me, Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!

Eliza died in 1846, after a long bout with Tuberculosis – faithfully attended by her dear sister the entire time.  It was only near the end of Eliza’s life that Sarah began to show signs of the disease herself.  Sarah held on for nearly two years, but finally passed away in 1848 at the age of 43.

One of the survivors of the Titanic, on April 14, 1912, recalled that the band played this hymn as the great ship sank to its icy grave.

Morgan, Robert J., Then Sings My Soul, Nelson Publishing, 2003.

https://www.bartleby.com/294/124.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Fuller_Flower_Adams