This sheet music is part of the collection of crosby3145 :
If you look through a
hymnal, you’ll find that
many times, the person who
wrote the words is different
from the person who wrote the
tune. John Newton wrote
Amazing Grace, but the tune is
an American folk song. For
the Beauty of the Earth has
words by Folliott S. Pierpoint
but music by Conrad Kocher.
Even the wonderful hymns of
Fanny Crosby usually have a
different author listed for
the tune. However, there have
been some hymnwriters who have
produced both the words and
the tune that went with them.
One of the first such was
Robert Lowry.
He was born in Philadelphia
March 12, 1826. Growing up,
he enjoyed music a great deal
and would fiddle around with
any instrument he could get
his hands on. More
importantly, he got saved at
the age of seventeen, and
subsequently joined the First
Baptist Church of
Philadelphia, where he was
soon teaching Sunday School
and singing in the choir.
George B. Ide, Lowry’s
pastor, soon encouraged the
22-year-old Lowry to take up a
career in the ministry. To
this end, Lowry took classes
at University of Lewisburg.
Still around today as Bucknell
University, the college was so
small when Lowry was there
that meetings were held in the
basement of the local Baptist
church. Lowry was quite
active while a student
there—he organized and
directed a choir and graduated
in 1854 with the highest
honors. That year, he also
married Anna Rhees Loxley.
Lowry’s first preaching
assignment was at the First
Baptist Church in West
Chester, Pennsylvania. He
pastored there for four years,
then moved to New York, where
he first preached at the
Bloomingdale Baptist Church
for two years, then started
preaching at the Hanson Place
Baptist Church in Brooklyn.
It was while at Hanson Place
that Lowry wrote what is
probably his most famous hymn,
and undoubtedly one of the
most famous of all-time.
During the summer of 1864, an
epidemic in Brooklyn had
caused many deaths. On one
particularly hot day, Lowry
suddenly thought of the first
verse of Revelation 22: “And
he shewed me a pure river of
water of life, clear as
crystal, proceeding out of the
throne of God and of the
Lamb.” He proceeded to
write “Shall We Gather at
the River,” which has
enjoyed widespread popularity
to this day. Ironically,
Lowry was not a huge fan of
it: “It is brass band music,
has a march movement, and for
that reason has become
popular, though for myself I
do not think much of it.”
He was honored, however, once
when visiting London he was
recognized as the author of
the hymn: “I felt…that,
after all, I had perhaps done
some little good in the world,
and I felt more than ever
content to die when God
called.” The hymn has been
used very commonly in movies,
particularly westerns.
Following William B.
Bradbury’s death in 1868,
the New York publishing firm
of Biglow & Main
approached Lowry, asking him
to replace Bradbury as their
hymnal editor. Lowry was
initially reluctant—he
considered himself first a
pastor and didn’t want to
shirk on his pastoral
responsibilities—but he was
encouraged to accept, and he
continued to work as pastor at
the same time. While at
Biglow & Main, he worked
with other such notable
hymnwriters as William H.
Doane and Ira D. Sankey.
Mostly during his time with
Biglow & Main, he produced
or coproduced over 25
collections of hymns, which
featured many of his own works
among them.
A year after taking the
Biglow & Main position,
Lowry was invited by the
president of the University at
Lewisburg to pastor the
Baptist church there, which
was in the process of
finishing up their new
building. Lowry’s oratory
is credited as convincing the
congregation to quickly pay
off the church’s building
debt. He also began teaching
at the university, as
professor of rhetoric. Still,
with all these
responsibilities, Lowry made
time to write hymns.
Lowry stayed in Lewisburg
until 1875, when he resigned
the professorship to move to
Plainfield, New Jersey, where
he became pastor of Park
Avenue Church. He pastored
there for ten years before
resigning due to ill health.
Lowry then toured the American
south and west
extensively—this had a
recuperating effect on his
health, and he went back to
preaching when he got back to
Plainfield. His wife died in
1890, and he married Mary Jane
Runyon two years later. In
1894, he had the honor of
writing a hymn to commemorate
the 50th Anniversary of the
Baptist church in Lewisburg.
He passed away November 25,
1879, at the age of 73.
It was as a pastor that Lowry
hoped to be remembered. His
gift for oratory was described
as spellbinding. Park Avenue
erected a memorial stone to
Lowry twelve years after his
death, and Lowry himself said,
“I would rather preach a
gospel sermon to an
appreciative, receptive
congregation than write a
hymn.”
Still, Lowry wrote many
wonderful hymns—his
contributions in this field
certainly cannot be ignored.
Lowry was self-taught as a
hymnist, but he was an earnest
student of it. Once he became
a music publisher, he got
several music textbooks and
studied them, seeking to
better refine his skills.
Lowry described his
compositional technique as
follows: “I have no method.
Sometimes the music comes and
the words follow, fitted
insensibly to the melody. I
watch my moods, and when
anything good strikes me,
whether words or music, and no
matter where I am, at home or
on the street, I jot it down.
Often the margin of a
newspaper or the back of an
envelope serves as a notebook.
My brain is a sort of spinning
machine, I think, for there is
music running through it all
the time. I do not pick out my
music on the keys of an
instrument. The tunes of
nearly all the hymns I have
written have been completed on
paper before I tried them on
the organ. Frequently the
words of the hymn and the
music have been written at the
same time.” He wrote his
first hymn, “When the
Morning Light,” at the age
of 21, and he followed it with
many more. The ten
represented in this collection
are but a small portion of his
work.
The Dictionary of Hymnology
by John Julian from 1907 has a
list purporting to be
Lowry’s most famous hymns.
On it are the classic “Shall
We Gather at the River,”
“Up from the Grave He
Arose,” and “Nothing but
the Blood of Jesus,” all of
which are represented here.
Ironically, though, many of
the others are completely
familiar today, and other
better-known hymns by Lowry
are not represented in
Julian’s list. This
collection contains the eight
by him from Great Hymns of the
Faith, plus a couple of the
forgotten ones from Julian’s
list—“Beautiful Land of
Rest” and “Marching On,
Marching On”—I would
encourage you to check those
out as well. I hope this
collection proves a blessing
to you!