Lyrics
My soul in sad exile was out on life's sea,
So burdened with sin, and distressed,
Till I heard a sweet voice saying, "Make Me your choice,"
And I entered the haven of rest.
I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest,
I'll sail the wide seas no more;
The tempest may sweep o'er the wild stormy deep,
In Jesus I'm safe evermore.
I yielded myself to His tender embrace,
And faith taking hold of the word,
My fetters fell off, and I anchored my soul:
The haven of rest is my Lord.
The song of my soul, since the Lord made me whole,
Has been the old story so blessed,
Of Jesus who'll save whosoever will have
A home in the haven of rest.
How precious the thought that we all may recline,
Like John, the beloved and blessed,
On Jesus' strong arm, where no tempest can harm,
Secure in the haven of rest.
Oh, come to the Savior, He patiently waits
To save by His power divine;
Come, anchor your soul in the haven of rest,
And say, "My Beloved is mine."
Public domain hymn text and tune (written in the late 1880s). Words by Henry L. Gilmour; music by George D. Moore.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Henry Lake Gilmour lived an unusually varied life before becoming a hymn writer. Born in Londonderry, Ireland, he went to sea at sixteen to study navigation, eventually settling in America, where he worked as a house painter. During the Civil War he served with the 1st New Jersey Cavalry, was captured in battle, and spent months as a prisoner in a Confederate prison camp. After the war he trained as a dentist, and alongside that profession he became a Sunday school superintendent, choir director, and an in-demand song leader at camp meetings.
Out of that seafaring background came "The Haven of Rest," the best-known of the many gospel songs Gilmour went on to write, publishing more than sixteen song collections over his career. The hymn casts the sinner as a soul lost at sea — in "sad exile," burdened and distressed — and Christ Himself as the harbor where that soul finally finds safe anchorage. George D. Moore composed the tune, and together the two produced a hymn whose central metaphor of anchoring a storm-tossed soul would have carried unmistakable weight coming from a man who had genuinely spent his youth on the water.
The reference in the fourth verse to John, "the beloved and blessed," recalls the disciple reclining on Jesus' breast at the Last Supper described in John 13 — an image of nearness and safety the hymn extends to any singer who will come to the same haven.
Gilmour's wide-ranging life — sailor, soldier, prisoner of war, dentist, choir director — gave him an unusually broad well of experience to draw on, but it is this one hymn about a soul finally coming safely to harbor that has carried his name furthest.
