Lyrics
When I saw the cleansing fountain
Open wide for all my sin,
I obeyed the Spirit's wooing,
When He said, Wilt thou be clean?
I will praise Him! I will praise Him!
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory, all ye people,
For His blood can wash away each stain.
Though the way seems straight and narrow,
All I claimed was swept away;
My ambitions, plans and wishes,
At my feet in ashes lay.
Then God's fire upon the altar
Of my heart was set aflame;
I shall never cease to praise Him —
Glory, glory to His name!
Blessèd be the name of Jesus!
I'm so glad He took me in;
He's forgiven my transgressions,
He has cleansed my heart from sin.
Glory, glory to the Father!
Glory, glory to the Son!
Glory, glory to the Spirit!
Glory to the Three in One!
Public domain hymn text and tune (copyrighted 1898).
The Story Behind the Hymn
Margaret J. Harris wrote both the words and music of "I Will Praise Him" in 1898, drawing the text directly from her own experience at a Holiness camp meeting, where she described undergoing a powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit — an experience of cleansing and full consecration that the hymn narrates almost as a personal testimony set to song.
Born in 1865 in Rushville, Illinois, Harris married the evangelist John Harris, and the two spent much of their lives together working the Holiness camp-meeting circuit as musicians and song evangelists. Margaret played the organ to accompany their duets and was known in her own right as an effective preacher. In 1901 the couple served as music directors for the General Holiness Convention held in Chicago, and Margaret later edited a hymnbook of her own, Glorious Gospel in Song, for the Christian Witness Publishing Company.
The hymn was copyrighted in 1898 under the Nazarene Publishing House and spread quickly through Holiness camp meetings and revival gatherings, the same circuit where Harris herself ministered. Its narrative arc follows the shape of a testimony: the cleansing fountain, the surrender of ambitions and plans, the fire set upon the altar of the heart, and finally an outright doxology, the last stanza turning from personal testimony to praise of the Trinity itself.
Harris died in 1919 in Miami, but the hymn she wrote out of one camp-meeting experience continued to serve exactly the purpose it was born from — giving other worshippers words for a moment of consecration much like her own.
