I've posted on my favorite hymn before, Be Thou My Vision. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing may be my next favorite. I'm not sure we need any other songs in our churches. I recently discovered that the version most of us are familiar with is a shorter version of the original. Though the song has an Irish feel to it (and I enjoy singing it with a hint of Irish), the music was written by an American pastor, Asahel Nettleton, and the lyrics written by an English pastor, Robert Robinson. The text appeared somewhere around 1757-1759 and (from what I can tell) the text was combined with the music in 1813 by John Wyeth. In my next post I'll explore the variations of the song that exist.

Here's a bit about the author:

"During his early teen years, Robert Robinson lived in London, where he mixed with a notorious gang of hoodlums and led a life of debauchery. At the age of 17 he attended a meeting where the noted evangelist George Whitefield was preaching. Robinson went for the purpose of 'scoffing at those poor, deluded Methodists' and ended up professing faith in Christ as his Savior. Soon he felt called to preach the gospel and subsequently became the pastor of a rather large Baptist church in Cambridge, England. Despite his young age, Robinson became known as an able minister and scholar, writing various theological books as well as several hymns, including [Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing] when he was just 23 years of age." Amazing Grace by Kenneth W. Osbeck, p343.

Robinson actually became a Calvinist Methodist pastor in Norfolk before becoming a Baptist. He became close friends with noted Unitarian Joseph Priestly and many speculated that Robinson had then become a Unitarian. "However, in a sermon he preached after he supposedly became a Unitarian, Robinson clearly declared that Jesus was God, and added, "Christ in Himself is a person infinitely lovely as both God and man.""(CHI)

"There is a well-known story of Robinson, riding a stagecoach with a lady who was deeply engrossed in a hymnbook. Seeking to encourage him, she asked him what he thought of the hymn she was humming. Robinson burst into tears and said, "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then."" (songsandhymns.org)

This story of Robinson toward the end of his life has left many to wonder if, as he wrote in the hymn, he had wandered left the God he loved.