Julia Harriette Johnston

Julia Harriette Johnston was an American Presbyterian teacher, poet, author, and hymn writer. Born in Salineville, Ohio, on January 21, 1849, she spent most of her life in Peoria, Illinois, where her father served First Presbyterian Church. She attended Peoria High School and became deeply involved in the congregation's educational and missionary ministries.

Johnston served as a Sunday school superintendent and teacher for approximately four decades and led the Presbyterian Missionary Society of Peoria for about twenty years. Her writing grew from that educational vocation: besides Sunday school lessons and more than five hundred hymn texts, she produced religious verse, stories, and missionary biographies for younger readers. Her books include The School of the Master and Other Religious Verses, Indian and Spanish Neighbors, and Fifty Missionary Heroes Every Boy and Girl Should Know.

Her hymns belong to the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American gospel-song tradition, combining direct biblical teaching with language intended for congregational and evangelistic use. Grace Greater Than Our Sin became her best-known text, while her broader body of work reflects sustained commitments to Christian education, missions, and devotional literature. Johnston died in Peoria on March 6, 1919.