Consider, for example, something that happened to Ray Palmer in 1830. Ray had just recently graduated from Yale University. It had been a very difficult year for him, as he had battled illness for most of the year and was especially discouraged because of loneliness. One evening, before retiring for the night, he sat down and wrote some words he said were, "Out of his soul, and with much tender emotion. So that, when I had finished the final lines, I had tears streaming down my face." He put the notes away in his wallet and carried them there. Whenever he would get disconsolate, he would take them out and read them, not fully realizing what he had.

Two years later, while in Boston, he chanced to meet Dr. Lowell Mason, famed hymn writer and publisher. At this coincidental meeting, Dr. Mason asked the young minister if he had anything that could be used in a new book of hymns. "Nothing but this," and he handed Mason his notes. Several days later, they met again, and Dr. Mason said, "Mr. Palmer, You may live many years and do many good things, but I think you will be best known to posterity as the writer of these words..."

What were those words Mr. Ray Palmer had written and carried in his pocket for the past two years? Six stanzas that begin:
 

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