Samuel Wolcott – penned

ON THIS DATE

Samuel Wolcott, on this date, penned the words to “Christ for the World We Sing.”   He was born 7/2/1813 at South Windham, CT. After attending both Yale (AB 1833) & An­do­ver The­o­log­ic­al Sem­in­ary, he was briefly a mis­sion­ary in Syr­ia. He held pastorates in the east but also pastured in Chicago and Cleveland. While in Ohio he served as sec­re­tary of the Ohio Home Mis­sion­ary So­ci­e­ty and pastured the Ply­mouth Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church of Cleve­land.

He wrote, “It was on my way home from this serv­ice [a YMCA evangelistic service] in 1869, walk­ing alone through the streets, that I put to­ge­ther the four stan­zas of the hymn.” Some 200 hymns are at­trib­ut­ed to the Congregational clergyman Wolcott, who died 2/24/1886, back east in MA.       

Stanza 1 (of 4)

Christ for the world we sing, The world to Christ we bring, with loving zeal,

The poor and them that mourn, the faint and overborne, Sin sick and sorrow worn, whom Christ doth heal.

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Samuel Wolcott – penned, Feb. 7, 1869

Christ for the world we sing,
The world to Christ we bring, with loving zeal,
The poor and them that mourn, the faint and overborne,
Sin sick and sorrow worn, whom Christ doth heal.

Christ for the world we sing,
The world to Christ we bring, with fervent prayer;
The wayward and the lost, by restless passions tossed,
Redeemed at countless cost, from dark despair.

Christ for the world we sing,
The world to Christ we bring, with one accord;
With us the work to share, with us reproach to dare,
With us the cross to bear, for Christ our Lord.

Christ for the world we sing,
The world to Christ we bring, with joyful song;
The newborn souls, whose days, reclaimed from error’s ways,
Inspired with hope and praise, to Christ belong.

Samuel Wolcott, on this date, 2/7/1869, penned the words to the missionary hymn, “Christ for the World We Sing.”

Wolcott at­tended Yale Coll­ege (BA, 1833) and also An­do­ver The­o­log­ic­al Sem­in­ary.  He was a mis­sion­ary in Syr­ia and then pas­tored in Bel­cher­town, MA, Prov­i­dence, RI, and Chi­ca­go.  He was pastoring the Ply­mouth Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church in Cleve­land, Ohio when he penned the above.  It is one of some 200 he produced. 

It is reported that he saw “Christ for the World, and the World for Christ” at a YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) meeting.  This sug­gest­ed the hymn. “It was on my way home from this serv­ice in 1869, walk­ing alone through the streets, that I put to­ge­ther the four stan­zas of the hymn.”  The hymn was published in W. H. Doane’s Songs of Devotion (1870).

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