William Cowper
The poet William Cowper was born in 1731, the fourth
child of a British pastor. His poetry
helped set the stage for the Romantic poetry of the following century – his works
were admired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, for
example. He wrote about everyday
situations.
William’s three siblings died, then his mother died when
he was six years old while giving birth to a fifth child. His mother’s death had a profound emotional
impact on him for the rest of his life – over 50 years later someone sent him a
picture of his mother and he wrote one of his more famous poems, “On the
Receipt of My Mother’s Picture” – a very sad little poem:
My mother! When I learn’d that thou wast dead,
Say, wast thou conscious of the
tears I shed?
Hover’d thy spirit o’er thy sorrowing
son,
Wretch even then, life’s journey
just begun?...
I heard the bell toll’d on thy
burial day,
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow
away,
And, turning from my nurs’ry
window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a
last adieu!
From ages 8-10, William’s father sent him to a boarding
school where the young boy was mercilessly tormented by a bully. From ages 10-18, he was sent to Westminster
school where his experience was better, and developed a love for poetry and
writing. Through his education here, his
father intended for him to pursue a legal career, but he developed severe
anxiety when it came time to pursue his bar examination. His anxiety was so severe, he attempted
suicide at least three times and was institutionalized in an asylum run by Dr
Nathaniel Cotton – both a poet and a faithful Christian. At this asylum, William found the Lord while
reading Romans 3:25: “…whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood,
through faith…”
When he had recovered, he met a retired pastor named Morley
Unwin and his wife Mary. They offered to
let him stay in their home for 2 weeks – and 2 weeks turned into 22 years. They helped sharpen his focus on Christ, and
he found that gardening in their home helped ward off his depression.
It was probably during his years with the Unwins that Cowper
wrote the hymn, ‘There is a Fountain’:
There is a fountain, filled with blood;
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins
And sinners plunged beneath that
flood, lose all their guilty stains.
When Morley died, Mary moved to the town of Olney, where
John Newton was a pastor. William and
John became great friends, and John became a mentor to William. William often helped him in visitations and
in benevolence. He also joined Newton in
his anti-slavery campaigning, and composed many verses to that end. His poem ‘Pity for Poor Africans’ was often quoted
by Martin Luther King, Jr. during the American civil rights movement. Depression and spiritual doubt was always at
his door, and he fought constantly to keep it at bay.
At one point, Mary grew gravely ill, and William’s
depression came back with a vengeance.
He prayed earnestly that God would heal her. God did heal her, and it was during that time
he wrote a hymn, #73 in The Baptist Hymnal, called ‘God Moves in a Mysterious
Way’. Through this hymn, Cowper is
credited with the phrase ‘God moves in mysterious ways’ often used today.
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders
to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the
sea, And rides upon the storm.
William Cowper’s depression and anxiety help show us that
those afflicted in this way often have a more sensitive spirit to spiritual matters
as well as to the needs of others.
When William lay on his deathbed in the year 1800, it is
said that his face suddenly lit up and he exclaimed, “I am not shut out of
Heaven after all!”
Morgan, Robert J. Then
Sings My Soul, Nelson Publishers, 2003.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cowper
