Great Hymns Of The Faith - Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me
This is copied from the bulletin of Calvary Baptist Church on 472 Ocean Road in Portsmouth NH 03801 (603) 436-7736. The bulletin is dated February 16th of 2025.
Great Hymns Of The Faith
"Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me"
Edward Hopper, 1818-1888
Sometimes Christian hymns speak to the laboring man in the familiar terms of his daily work. Charles Wesley visited the collies at Newcastle-On-Tyne and, seeing the reflection of their furnace fires against the midnight sky, wrote for them the hymn, "See How Great A Flame Aspired". Likewise, on visiting the quarrymen at Portland he wrote for them the hymn containing these lines,
"Strike the hammer of the Word,
and break the hearts of stone."
It was a similar impulse that led Edward Hooper, while working among seafaring men, to write for them the hymn, "Jesus Saviour, Pilot me", which is full of pictures of the sea and is suggestive of the miracle wrought by Jesus Christ when He and His disciples were on the sea.
From 1870 until his death in 1888, the author, a Presbyterian clergyman, was pastor of the Church of the Sea and Land which largely a mission to sailors. The anniversary of the Seaman's Friend Society was held in Broadway Tabernacle, New York City, on May 10, 1880, and for the occasion he was asked to write a new hymn. Instead he brought this hymn, which he had published anonymously in the Sailor's Magazine in 1871, and read it to the congregation. Then for the first time the secret of his authorship became known; for it had already been printed anonymously in a number of hymnals, albeit without the knowledge of its author.
"Jesus Saviour, pilot me. Over Life's tempestuous seafaring chart and compass come from Thee; Jesus Saviour pilot me".
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