Lyrics
Nearer, still nearer — close to Thy heart,
Draw me, my Savior, so precious Thou art;
Fold me, O fold me close to Thy breast;
Shelter me safe in that haven of rest,
Shelter me safe in that haven of rest.
Nearer, still nearer — nothing I bring,
Naught as an offering to Jesus, my King —
Only my sinful, now contrite heart;
Grant me the cleansing Thy blood doth impart,
Grant me the cleansing Thy blood doth impart.
Nearer, still nearer — Lord, to be Thine,
Sin with its follies I gladly resign —
All of its pleasures, pomp and its pride;
Give me but Jesus, my Lord crucified,
Give me but Jesus, my Lord crucified.
Nearer, still nearer — while life shall last,
Till safe in glory my anchor is cast;
Through endless ages, ever to be
Nearer, my Savior, still nearer to Thee,
Nearer, my Savior, still nearer to Thee.
Public domain hymn text and tune (published 1898). Words and music by Leila N. Morris.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Leila Naylor Morris wrote both the words and music of "Nearer, Still Nearer" in 1898, at thirty-six years old, publishing it that same year in the collection Pentecostal Praise. A native of Pennsville, in Morgan County, Ohio, Morris had both musical and poetic gifts from an early age, and was specifically encouraged to pursue hymn writing by Henry L. Gilmour — the same hymn writer behind "The Haven of Rest," a phrase that, fittingly, turns up inside the first verse of Morris's own hymn: "shelter me safe in that haven of rest."
Morris went on to write more than a thousand hymns over her career, but her later life added an unusual chapter to her story: she became blind in middle age, well after "Nearer, Still Nearer" had already been written and published. Rather than stop composing, she continued working with the help of a specially built twenty-eight-foot-long blackboard, on which she could write out her music by feel, and by dictating finished texts to her daughter.
The hymn itself moves through four stages of a single sustained prayer — to be drawn close, to bring nothing but a contrite heart, to resign the pleasures and pride of sin, and finally to remain near Christ for eternity — each verse repeating its final line twice, as if the request itself needed saying more than once to be fully believed.
Written years before blindness reshaped how she worked, "Nearer, Still Nearer" nonetheless reads as a fitting summary of the whole of Morris's later career: a request for closeness to Christ that she kept making, in one form or another, across a thousand more hymns and total loss of sight.
