At some point you've probably sung the hymn whose music reminds you of powerful, rolling ocean waves. It fits the lyrics that include these about God's love:
O, the deep, deep love of Jesus,/Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean/In its fullness over me!
Surprisingly, these stout words of affirmation came from the pen of someone who, as a young man, nearly committed suicide. His name was Samuel Trevor Francis, and one cold, rainy winter night in 1853, at about age 19, he halted as he crossed the Hungerford Bridge of London's River Thames. Discouraged, sickly, he was about to fall over the railings to death. Instead of yielding to the inner voice that said, “End all this misery,” he reportedly heard another message, “You do believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Instead of jumping to his death, he affirmed, “I do believe, and I put my whole trust in Him as my Savior.” He ran across the bridge repeating the words, “Then I am saved, then I am saved!”
Born in northern suburb of London, his family moved about 200 miles north to the port city of Hull, near relatives who taught him Bible truths. At age nine, along with his brother and father, he joined the local church choir. By that time he was also writing poetry. When the family moved back to London, where he briefly apprenticed with a doctor, he encountered a group of Plymouth Brethren believers. Finding new hope after that dark night on the bridge, becoming a successful merchant, he found his spiritual passion in hymn-writing and open-air preaching through the Plymouth Brethren. His ministry included helping with music for the Dwight Moody/Ira Sankey London crusades of 1873-74.
Despite failing eyesight, he preached for 73 years around the world, having the unusual privilege of hearing some of his hymns sung. At age 92 he went into a nursing home where he soon died.
Of course, the other half of the story of his best known hymn is the dramatic music later matched to it. For that, credit Welsh musician Thomas John Williams, who brought the tune to Welsh hymnals in 1897. The tune became known as “Ebenezer” for the South Wales chapel that Williams once attended.. The name comes from the “stone of help” mentioned in 1 Samuel 7:12, commemorating the Israelites' thunder-assisted victory over the Philistines. As a footnote, another “Williams,” famed English musician and music historian Ralph Vaughan Williams, called “Ebenezer” one of history's greatest hymn tunes.
This stunning hymn video pairs a violinist and vocalist performing at a beach—appropriate for the hymn's phrase “rolling as a mighty ocean”:
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