In 1858, Presbyterian minister George Duffield Jr. was an associate of Dudley Atkins Tyng who had recently been removed from his local Episcopalian community for speaking against slavery.
"[2][4] Duffield then wrote the hymn based on those words, and also incorporated the phrase "Ye that are men now serve Him" from Tyng's memorable sermon the month before he died.
[3] At a memorial service for Tyng, Duffield gave a sermon based on Ephesians 6:14, "Stand firm, wearing the whole armour of God", and ended it by reciting the new hymn he had written as a tribute.
[9][10][11] The hymn was excluded from a more politically correct volume of The Presbyterian Hymnal published in June 1990, in order not to offend handicapped people.
The one used most often now was written by George James Webb, who had originally composed it in 1837 for "Tis Dawn, the Lark is Singing", a song in a secular musical show performed on a ship travelling across the Atlantic Ocean.