Then, while leaning on Thy breast,
May I hear Thee say to me,
“Fear not, I will pilot thee.”
Edward Hopper, 1871.
A FAMOUS HYMN WRITTEN FOR SAILORS
It does not surprise us that the writer of “Jesus, Saviour, pilot me” was the pastor of a sailors’ church. Rev. Edward Hopper, who for many years was minister of the Church of Sea and Land in New York harbor, had in mind the daily life of the seamen attending his church when he wrote his famous lyric. A hymn on the theme of the stormy sea, picturing Jesus as the divine Pilot—this, he felt, would appeal to sailors and be a source of constant comfort and encouragement.
Perhaps Hopper got his idea from Charles Wesley. It was a common practice of the great English hymn-writer to compose hymns that were particularly adapted to the audiences he addressed. When he visited the men who worked in the Portland quarries in England, he wrote the hymn containing the lines:
Strike with the hammer of Thy Word,
And break these hearts of stone.
In any event, Hopper’s beautiful hymn at once sprang into popular use, not only with sailors, but with Christians everywhere. It appeared for the first time anonymously in “The Sailors’ Magazine,” but several hymn-books adopted it. It was not until 1880, nine years after it was published, however, that the author’s name became known. In that year the anniversary of the Seamen’s Friend Society was held in Broadway Tabernacle, New York City, and Hopper was asked to write a hymn for the occasion. He responded by producing “Jesus, Saviour, pilot me,” and the secret was out.