Howard Arnold Walter

Howard Arnold Walter was born in New Britain, Connecticut, in 1883 and graduated from Princeton University in 1905. After beginning studies at Hartford Theological Seminary, he spent the 1906–1907 academic year teaching English at Waseda University in Tokyo. A 1949 hymnological account reports that he composed his personal creed there on New Year's morning in 1907 and sent it to his mother. The poem appeared in Harper's Magazine in May 1907 and later gave its title to his 1912 collection, My Creed and Other Poems.

Walter completed his theological education and pursued further study in Edinburgh and Germany. Ordained in the Congregational tradition, he served as assistant pastor of Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford from 1910 to 1911. His vocation soon turned toward international Christian service.

In 1913 Walter joined the Young Men's Christian Association in India and worked in Lahore, especially among Muslim students. His scholarship and ministry included The Ahmadiya Movement, published in 1918, and the posthumous Soul Surgery, a book on personal evangelism. He died in Lahore on November 1, 1918, during the influenza pandemic. His brief life joined literary aspiration, pastoral work, interreligious study, and missionary service; the hymn remains his best-known legacy.