Daniel Iverson

Daniel Iverson was born in Brunswick, Georgia, in 1890 and died in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1977. He studied at the University of Georgia, Moody Bible Institute, Columbia Theological Seminary, and the University of South Carolina. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1914, he served congregations in Georgia and the Carolinas and combined parish ministry with evangelistic work. In 1926, while pastor of Howard Memorial Presbyterian Church in Tarboro, North Carolina, he wrote both the words and melody of Spirit of the Living God.

Iverson moved to Florida in 1927 and organized Shenandoah Presbyterian Church in Miami, remaining its pastor until his retirement in 1951. Hymnary’s biographical record credits him with planting seven congregations during his Miami ministry. His best-known chorus briefly lost its attribution after anonymous and altered printings helped it circulate widely; E. Powell Lee, who had introduced it during the 1926 Orlando evangelistic campaign, later helped restore Iverson’s name in Baptist publications during the 1960s. Iverson’s enduring significance rests less on a large hymn catalogue than on the extraordinary reach of this compact prayer, whose text and purpose-written tune crossed denominational, linguistic, and liturgical boundaries.