e sorrow's tears away,
Nor let me ever stray
From Thee aside.

When ends life's transient dream,
When death's cold, sullen stream
Shall o'er me roll,
Blest Saviour, then, in love,
Fear and distrust remove;
O bear me safe above,
A ransomed soul.

Ray Palmer, 1830.

AMERICA'S GREATEST HYMN AND ITS AUTHOR

Although a number of America's great poets wrote hymns, it was not given
to any one of them to compose America's finest Christian lyric. Bryant
wrote "Look from Thy sphere of endless day," Whittier was the author of
"Dear Lord and Father of mankind," Holmes composed "O Love Divine, that
stooped to share," and Longfellow has given us "I heard the bells of
Christmas day;" but, beautiful as these hymns are, none of them can
compare with "My faith looks up to Thee." This, "the most precious
contribution which American genius has yet made to the hymnology of the
Christian Church," came from the pen of a very humble but gifted
minister, Ray Palmer.

Palmer, who was born at Little Compton, R. I., November 12, 1808, was a
direct descendant of John Alden and his good wife, Priscilla. One of his
forebears was William Palmer, who came to Plymouth in 1621.

Through pressure of poverty Ray found it necessary to leave home at the
age of thirteen, after having received a grammar education. For two years
he clerked in a Boston dry goods store, during which time he passed
through some deep spiritual experiences, with the result that he gave his
heart to God.

Friends who recognized unusual gifts in the young man urged him to attend
school. Eventually he graduated from Phillips Andover Academy and from
Yale. For a while he taught in New York and New Haven, but in 1835 he was
ordained to the Congregational ministry. He served a congregation in
Bath, Maine, for fifteen years, and another at Albany, N. Y., for a like
period, after which he became Corresponding Secretary of the American
Congregational Union, a position which he held until 1878, when he was
compelled to retire because of failing health.

It was while he was teaching in New York City that "My faith looks up to
Thee" was written. He was only twenty-two years old at the time, and he
had no thought when writing it that he was composing a hymn for general
use. He tells in his own account of the hymn how he had been reading a
little German poem of two stanzas, picturing a penit