William True Sleeper

William True Sleeper was born in Danbury, New Hampshire, on February 9, 1819. He studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, the University of Vermont, and Andover Theological Seminary before entering Congregational ministry. Historical accounts of his ministry describe missionary and pastoral work in Massachusetts and northern Maine, including the organization or strengthening of churches in developing communities. He also served for a period as chaplain of the Massachusetts State Reform School and later became pastor of Summer Street Congregational Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he ministered for many years.

Sleeper combined pastoral work with poetry and devotional writing. His 1883 book The Rejected King and Hymns of Jesus contains an early form of the text later known as “Out of My Bondage, Sorrow and Night,” printed under the heading “The Believer’s Response.” That discovery places the text several years before its familiar 1887 gospel-song publication with music by George C. Stebbins.

Sleeper also wrote “Ye Must Be Born Again,” another text associated with Stebbins and widely circulated in evangelistic songbooks. His hymn writing reflects the conversion-oriented language of late nineteenth-century revival Christianity while remaining rooted in his Congregational pastoral ministry. He died in Massachusetts on September 24, 1904.