What on earth are we to do when the global financial world crumbles?Pray and move as God directs.
Anna and Susan Warner found themselves with their whole world crashing as their prosperous lawyer father lost heavily in the panic of 1837. The Wall Street meltdown took everything they owned but their summer home on Constitution Island in the Hudson River. Soon after his financial losses Henry Warner died. These young women had been motherless since
their young years. Their father, had privately educated them and both women were published authors.
The sisters, eager to do something to earn money so they could go on living in their home on the island, turned to writing. They had had some pieces published. They prayed for enough money from their writing to keep their home.Anna's real interest in life was writing hymns. "Jesus Loves Me" actually first appeared in the novel Say and Seal, authored by Susan.
Susan developed this novel around a dying little boy. In his last hours his Sunday School teacher sang the lyrics of Jesus Loves Me as he rocked the boy.
A hymn writer and publisher, William Bradbury read the novel and realised he had finally discovered the lyrics he had been praying for. The missionaries in China were frustrated with other hymns being so difficult for the Chinese to sing. He had developed a tune that would work, but he had not been able to develop lyrics that worked with the tune. When you see this hymn in a hymnal the tune is listed as CHINA. Most times it is capitalized.This is undoubtedly the best known hymn in the world. It has been translated into more languages than any other song. Missionaries have found it one of their best means of explaining the gospel in a clear simple way to those who speak a very different language.
When Mao Tse-tung founded the People's Republic in 1949, the church in China went through severe persecution. Friends in America received scarcely any news from the Chinese Christan's, but in 1972 came a message with this unusual sentence, "The 'This I Know' people are well."
Crossway Publishers, Great Christian Hymn Writers, By Jane Stuart Smith, Betty Carlson p. 163-164
As Paul Harvey says, come back tomorrow for the "rest of the story." Anna and Susan Warner's miracle story from God just gets better and better.
Remember Jesus Loves Me...
He Loves You..
The Bible Tells Us So.
