During the onset of a particularly severe bout of depression, the great English hymn-writer William Cowper realized that God's ways are not man's ways. Ella describes the moment: "On the first day of January 1773 Cowper was walking over the Olney fields when he received a sudden premonition that a second time of darkness and depression was about to fall on him. With his heart turned to God, he struggled home and immediately wrote down a confession of faith in verse form before that darkness came upon him." It was then that he penned the wondrous hymn:
God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform.
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2 comments:
Thank you brother. I heard a different origin story to this, I'd be curious to know if there's any fact to mine. The one I heard (and read somewhere!) was that he was planning to go and take his life by jumping from London Bridge. But a fog descended and the cabbie got lost and arrived back outside his house again when the fog lifted. He went inside and composed the hymn.
Yours sounds much more believable, but, I like the one I heard better!
I was told by a recent biographer of Newton that the bridge story was fabrication. I would love to hear if anyone else has any further information.
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