Philip Bliss

Philip Paul Bliss (9 July 1838 – 29 December 1876) was an American composer, conductor, writer of hymns and a bass-baritone[1] Gospel singer.

He wrote many well-known hymns, including "Hold the Fort" (1870), "Almost Persuaded" (1871); "Hallelujah, What a Saviour!"

(1875); "Let the Lower Lights Be Burning"; "Wonderful Words of Life" (1875); and the tune for Horatio Spafford's "It Is Well with My Soul" (1876).

His father was Mr. Isaac Bliss, who taught the family to pray daily, and his mother was Lydia Doolittle.

When (Bliss' wife's) Grandma Allen noticed his sad demeanor she was full of sympathy.

After telling him that thirty dollars "was a good deal of money", she told him of her old stocking into which she had been "dropping pieces of silver for a good many years.” She had Bliss count the amount of money in the stocking and realized it had more than the amount needed.

He was, however, offered a position at Root and Cady Musical Publishers, at a salary of $150 per month.

Bliss made significant amounts of money from royalties and gave them to charity and to support his evangelical endeavors.

Bliss wrote the gospel song "Hold the Fort" after hearing Major Daniel Webster Whittle narrate an experience in the American Civil War.

[5] On 29 December 1876, the Pacific Express train on which Bliss and his wife were traveling approached Ashtabula, Ohio.

[6] Found in his trunk, which somehow survived the crash and fire, was a manuscript bearing the lyrics of the only well-known Bliss Gospel song for which he did not write a tune: "I Will Sing of My Redeemer."

Soon thereafter, set to a tune specially written for it by James McGranahan, it became one of the first songs recorded by Thomas Edison.

In addition to these publications, in 1875, Bliss compiled, and in connection with Ira D. Sankey, edited Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs.

Many of his pieces appear in the books of George F. Root and Horatio R. Palmer, and many were published in sheet music form.

A large number of his popular pieces were published in The Prize, a book of Sunday school songs edited by Root in 1870.

Three of his hymns appear in the 1985 hymnbook of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy (#335) (also known as Let the Lower Lights Be Burning)[citation needed]; More Holiness Give Me (#131); and Should You Feel Inclined to Censure (#235) (words by an anonymous writer put to the tune of "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy"}.

Survivors of the RMS Titanic disaster, including Dr. Washington Dodge, reported that passengers in lifeboats sang the Bliss hymn "Pull for the Shore", some while rowing.

During a 11 May 1912 luncheon talk at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, just a few weeks after his family and he survived the sinking of the ocean liner, Dodge recounted: "Watching the vessel closely, it was seen from time to time that this submergence forward was increasing.