NEARER MY GOD TO THEE
Sarah Flower Adams was a British actress who received praise
for her performance in an 1837 production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. After health
problems disrupted her plans to continue with theater, she found comfort in
writing poems and hymns.
Her most notable hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” came about
in 1841 when Adam’s pastor was looking for a hymn for the following week’s
sermon on Genesis 28:11-19, which is referred to by many as “Jacob’s ladder,”
or “Jacob’s dream.” Adams offered to write the hymn and completed it within a
week to go along with the pastor’s sermon. The hymn was originally set to music
written by her sister, Eliza Flower, but another hymn-tune called “BETHANY,”
written by Lowell Mason in 1856, has become most widely recognized and is most
familiar to listeners today.
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