Jeremiah Eames Rankin

Jeremiah Eames Rankin was an American Congregational minister, educator, abolitionist, temperance advocate, author, and hymn writer. Born in Thornton, New Hampshire, in 1828, he graduated from Middlebury College in 1848 and studied theology at Andover Theological Seminary. His pastoral work took him through congregations in Vermont, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey. From 1869 to 1884 he served First Congregational Church in Washington, where Sunday evening gospel services made use of intentionally accessible sacred music.

Rankin also served as chaplain of the United States House of Representatives and taught homiletics and pastoral theology at Howard University. He was elected president of Howard near the end of the 1880s and served through 1903. Howard University remembers him as an abolitionist and minister whose presidency included the construction of Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, named for his brother.

Rankin edited or helped compile collections including “The Gospel Temperance Hymnal” and “Gospel Bells.” His own account of “God Be with You till We Meet Again” is unusually valuable: he said it was deliberately written as a Christian farewell rather than being prompted by a particular bereavement or departure. He also wrote under the pseudonym R. E. Jeremy and published hymns, sermons, poetry, and translations.