Background on 'It is Well with My Soul'

As you know, our Sunday worship celebrations at Friendship feature a blend of contemporary and traditional music, which is part of what we call thematic worship. One of the songs we'll be singing together this Sunday is an old hymn from the nineteenth century, It is Well with My Soul.

From this web site (where you can see the lyrics) comes the story of the two composers of this classic, Horatio G. Spafford and Philip P. Bliss:

The words to this hymn was written after two major traumas in Spafford's life. The first was the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871, which ruined him financially. Shortly after, while crossing the Atlantic, all four of Spafford's daughters died in a collision with another ship. Spafford's wife Anna survived and sent him the now famous telegram: "SAVED ALONE." Several weeks later, as Spafford's own ship passed near the spot where his daughters died, he was inspired to write these words.

Bliss originally named the tune "Ville de Havre" after the ship on which Spafford's four girls perished, the SS Ville de Havre. Ironically, Bliss himself died in a tragic train wreck shortly after writing this music.

If you go here, you can hear the verse and chorus.