Robert Robinson, born in Norfolk, Eng., Sept. 27, 1735, was a poor boy, left fatherless at eight years of age, and apprenticed to a barber, but was converted by the preaching of Whitefield and studied till he obtained a good education, and was ordained to the Methodist ministry. He is supposed to have written his well-known hymn in 1758. A certain unsteadiness of mind, however, caused him to revise his religious beliefs too often for his spiritual health or enjoyment, and after preaching as a Methodist, a Baptist, and an Independent, he finally became a Socinian. On a stage-coach journey, when a lady fellow-passenger began singing “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” to relieve the monotony of the ride, he said to her, “Madam, I am the unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago; and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, if I could feel as I felt then.”
Robinson died June 9, 1790.
John Wyeth was born in Cambridge, Mass., 1792, and died at Harrisburg, Pa., 1858. He was a musician and publisher, and issued a Music Book, Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music.
“A POOR WAYFARING MAN OF GRIEF,”
Written by James Montgomery, Dec., 1826, was a hymn of tide and headway in George Coles' tune of “Duane St.,” with a step that made every heart beat time. The four picturesque eight-line stanzas made a practical sermon in verse and song from Matt. 25:35, telling how—
A poor wayfaring man of grief
Hath often crossed me on my way,
Who sued so humbly for relief
That I could never answer nay.
I had no power to ask his name,