Philip Paul Bliss

Philip Paul Bliss was an American gospel singer, composer, hymn writer, music teacher, and evangelistic song leader born in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, in 1838. His early life included farm work, lumber camps, and intermittent schooling. After making a public profession of Christian faith in 1850, he was baptized by a Christian Church minister and later belonged to a Baptist congregation. Following his 1859 marriage to Lucy Young, biographical sources also connect him with the Presbyterian church at Rome, Pennsylvania. After moving into professional music work, he later served as choir director and Sunday-school superintendent at First Congregational Church in Chicago.

Bliss studied at the Normal Academy of Music in Geneseo, New York, and was encouraged by George F. Root, whose Chicago firm Root & Cady employed him to conduct musical conventions. By the 1870s he was increasingly devoted to gospel song and evangelistic work with Daniel W. Whittle and Dwight L. Moody. He wrote both words and music for “Wonderful Words of Life,” as well as songs including “Hold the Fort,” “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning,” and “Hallelujah! What a Savior!” Bliss and his wife died in the Ashtabula, Ohio, railway disaster on 29 December 1876 while traveling to Chicago for evangelistic meetings.