At age 22, Ray Palmer was exhausted. As a child he was a bright student, but family finances meant he had to quit school at age 13 to work as a clerk in a Boston dry goods store. Still, he gave his work his best effort while getting spiritual nourishment at the Park Street Congregational Church. There, he accepted Christ and felt the call to become a minister. He was able to complete his education and was accepted to Yale.
It was an exhausting time of life for him as he juggled his clerk job, Yale classes, teaching at a New York City girl's school, and studying for the ministry. One night in 1830 in his rented room he read a German poem about a sinner kneeling before the cross. It moved him so much that he added several stanzas on his own. According to one biographer, he admitted that when he finished, he was moved to tears, especially with that poem's last lines: Oh, bear me safe above, a ransomed soul! He later copied the lyrics into a little leather-bound book he kept of private devotional thoughts. It was never his intention that someone else would read the poem that began, “My faith looks up to Thee, thou Lamb of Calvary, Savior Divine.”
Two years later, working on his doctorate in theology, he was visiting in Boston when he ran into an old friend, Lowell Mason, already prominent as a music teacher, prodigious composer, and music publisher. Mason was working on a compilation to be called “Spiritual Songs for Social Worship” and wondered if Palmer had written anything he could use. Though hesitant to share his very personal devotional reflection, Palmer pulled out his little devotional journal and showed Mason the lyrics he'd written.
Mason didn't hesitate. He stepped into a store where he got a piece of paper and a pencil to copy them. When Mason got home, he re-read the words and began writing a tune he named “Olivet.” Two days later, the friends ran into each other again on Boston's streets. Mason blurted, “Mr. Palmer, you may live many years and do many good things, but I think you will be best known to posterity as the author of 'My Faith Looks Up To Thee.'”
A few years later, in 1835, having earned his doctorate in theology, Palmer was ordained to the ministry in the Congregational Church. He held pastorates and church offices in Maine and New York. He was also a popular author of original poetry, hymns and translated hymn texts, publishing several volumes. Probably the best known of his translated works is “Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts,” originally written in Latin by Bernard of Clairvaux 800 years earlier.
Palmer lived to be 79. He and his wife were married over a half century before she died. When he passed away in 1887, after a succession of strokes, three of his ten children survived. We can be thankful that he didn't stay in his first vocation—as a clerk in a dry goods store!
The Vagle Brothers harmonize the hymn is this beautiful YouTube video:
My Faith Looks Up To Thee (Hymns with lyrics) - Bing video
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