Stockton died suddenly while talking to friends just after having attended the morning service at Arch Street Church, Philadelphia, on March 25, 1877.
458. Just as I am, without one plea
Charlotte Elliott, 1789-1871
An immortal hymn expressing the feelings and needs of all penitent believers. It has been a source of comfort and help to multitudes of people.
“You must come to Christ just as you are.” These words, spoken to Miss Elliott by Dr. César Malan of Geneva, at a time when she was suffering and spiritually depressed, resulted in a new birth and formed the basis of her hymn, written twelve years later, in 1834, and now known all over the world. The hymn was first published in the author’s Invalids’ Hymn Book, 1836, headed with the text, John 6:37: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I shall in no wise cast out.”
The words were written one day when other members of her family were busy arranging for a bazaar to be held for a school banquet. The immediate circumstances are related by Dr. Handley C. G. Moule, Bishop of Durham, as follows:
The night before the bazaar she was kept wakeful by distressing thoughts of her apparent uselessness; and these thoughts passed into a spiritual conflict till she questioned the reality of her whole spiritual life and wondered whether it were anything better, after all, than an illusion of the emotions—an illusion ready to be sorrowfully dispelled. The next day, the busy day of the bazaar, the troubles of the night came back upon her with such force that she felt they must be met and conquered in the grace of God. She gathered up in her soul the grand certainties, not of her emotions, but of her salvation: her Lord, his power, his promise. And taking pen and paper from the table, she deliberately set down in writing for her own comfort the formulae of her faith. So in verse she restated to herself the gospel of pardon, peace, and heaven. As the day wore on, her sister-in-law, Mrs. H. V. Elliott, came in to see her and bring news of the work. She read the hymn and asked (she well might) for a copy. So it first stole out from that quiet room into the world, where now for sixty years it has been sowing and reaping till a multitude which only God can number have been blessed through its message.
Though a helpless invalid, Miss Elliott probably did more that day for her Lord and the upbuilding of His Kingdom than the rest of the family, all strong in body.
The hymn was sent to Dora Wordsworth, daughter of the poet, while she was on her death bed. Her husband, Edward Quillinan, has written of the incident in a letter to Miss Elliott, dated July 28, 1847. He tells of Dora’s appreciation of the hymn and her continual use of it during her last days on earth.
After Miss Elliott died, more than a thousand letters, thanking her for this hymn, were found.