George Coles Stebbins

George Coles Stebbins was born in Orleans County, New York, on February 26, 1846. After early experience in singing schools, he pursued musical study in western New York and moved to Chicago in 1869. There he worked with Lyon and Healy, directed music at First Baptist Church, and became acquainted with important gospel-song figures including George F. Root, Philip P. Bliss, and Ira D. Sankey. He later moved to Boston, directed music at Clarendon Street Baptist Church and Tremont Temple, and in 1876 entered evangelistic work connected with Dwight L. Moody and other revival leaders.

Stebbins became a singer, conductor, composer, and influential editor in the Gospel Hymns series. His own 1924 memoir provides firsthand evidence for his collaboration with William T. Sleeper: Sleeper sent him the verses later known as “Jesus, I Come,” and Stebbins supplied the musical setting. Their revised gospel-song form appeared in Gospel Hymns No. 5 in 1887.

Other widely used Stebbins tunes include settings for “Take Time to Be Holy,” “Saved by Grace,” and “Have Thine Own Way, Lord.” He also traveled internationally in evangelistic ministry and lived until October 6, 1945, preserving a direct personal link with the nineteenth-century Moody-Sankey gospel-song movement.