one poem's journey

While checking on the words and writer of the song “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” this morning, my hubby came across this story about Elizabeth C. Clephane, who wrote the words to that song and another which I loved as a kid: “There Were Ninety and Nine.”

(From Moody Church Media - “Stories of Beloved Hymns”)

Elizabeth C. Clephane was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1830. Throughout her brief lifetime, she was plagued with illness and a frail body. Despite her physical afflictions, she was affectionately known to the townspeople as “The Sunbeam.” Elizabeth enjoyed writing poetry and had several of her poems published in a Scottish Presbyterian magazine entitled The Family Treasury. However, the majority of her writings appeared anonymously in this magazine in 1872, three years after her early death in 1869. She is also well known for writing the hymn, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus.”

Miss Clephane wrote the text for “The Ninety and Nine” especially for children a short time before her death. It was published in a magazine called The Children's Hour. Five years later, the American evangelists D. L. Moody and Ira Sankey were in Great Britain for one of their noted revival campaigns.

The story is told of Moody and Sankey riding a train one morning from Glasgow to Edinburgh to conduct a service in the Free Assembly Hall of Edinburgh. Sankey stopped to purchase a newspaper in the train depot, hoping to get news from America. As he idly turned the pages of the paper during the ride, he discovered Elizabeth Clephane's poem. He tried to interest Moody in its contents, but the evangelist was too busy preparing his sermon. Finally, Sankey simply cut out the poem and placed it in his pocket.

At the meeting that afternoon in Edinburgh, the subject of Moody's message was “The Good Shepherd,” based on the passage in Luke I've just read (Luke 15). Finishing his address, Moody turned to Sankey and asked him to sing some fitting solo. Sankey could think of nothing that was appropriate. Then suddenly he recalled the little poem he had put into his vest pocket.

Placing his newspaper clipping on the folding organ before him, and breathing a prayer for divine help, he struck the chord of A flat and began to sing: “There were ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold, but one was out on the hills alone, far from the gates of gold. Away on the mountains wild and bare, away from the Shepherd's tender care...”

Note by note the tune was given, and that same tune has remained unchanged to this present day. Sankey declared that it was one of the most intense moments of his life. He said that he could sense immediately that the song had reached the hearts of the Scottish audience. Sankey continued to sing:

But none of the ransomed ever knew
How deep were the waters crossed;
Nor how dark was the night the Lord passed through,
E’re He found His sheep that was lost.

“When I reached the end of the song,” reported Sankey, “Mr. Moody was in tears, and so was I.” When Moody arose to give the invitation for salvation, many “lost sheep” responded to the call of Christ.

So, who knows where the urge to write a poem will lead ...