Jay Thomas Stocking

Jay Thomas Stocking (1870–1936) was an American Congregational minister, preacher, author, and hymn writer. Born in Lisbon, New York, on April 7, 1870, he graduated from Amherst College in 1895, taught at Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and then studied theology at Yale, receiving the B.D. degree in 1901. After ordination to the Congregational ministry, he continued study at the University of Berlin in 1902–1903.

Stocking served a succession of Congregational pastorates in New England, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Missouri. His appointments included the Church of the Redeemer in New Haven, First Church in Bellows Falls, Central Church in Newtonville, First Church in Washington, Union Congregational Church in Upper Montclair, Pilgrim Congregational Church in St. Louis, and First Church in Newton Centre. He also held wider denominational responsibilities and served as moderator of the National Council of Congregational Christian Churches in 1934–1935.

Stocking published devotional and literary works including The City That Never Was Reached, The Golden Goblet, Mr. Friend O’Man, and Queery Queer. His best-known hymn is “O Master Workman of the Race,” written in 1912. A later account, preserved in hymnological sources, says that The Pilgrim Press had asked him for a hymn and that the image of Christ as carpenter came into focus while he watched carpenters working at his Adirondack camp. Stocking died at Newton Centre, Massachusetts, on January 27, 1936.