I will sing the wondrous story
Of the Christ who died for me,
How He left His home in glory
For the cross of Calvary.
Yes, I’ll sing the wondrous story
Of the Christ who died for me,
Sing it with the saints in glory,
Gathered by the crystal sea.
I was lost, but Jesus found me,
Found the sheep that went astray,
Threw His loving arms around me,
Drew me back into His way.
I was bruised, but Jesus healed me,
Faint was I from many a fall,
Sight was gone, and fears possessed me,
But He freed me from them all.
Public domain hymn text (published 1886). Words by Francis H. Rowley.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Francis H. Rowley, a Baptist pastor serving a congregation in Massachusetts, wrote this hymn's text in 1886 at the specific, somewhat urgent request of his own church's music director, Peter P. Bilhorn, who needed a brand-new hymn text on genuinely short notice because none of the songs already available within their existing congregational collection seemed to fit an upcoming special service adequately. Rowley reportedly produced the complete text within a single day of being asked, drawing directly on the parable of the lost sheep found in Luke 15 together with more general biblical themes of rescue, searching, and grateful restoration.
Bilhorn set Rowley's hurriedly written text to music almost immediately afterward, and the resulting completed hymn spread quickly through gospel song collections used at evangelistic revival campaigns over the following several years, gradually becoming a standard testimony hymn regularly sung at revival meetings held across the country during this same general period of intense American evangelistic activity.
Rowley later went on, in a considerably later phase of his working life, to become a genuinely prominent and influential figure within the American humane and animal welfare movement, serving for many years as president of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, actively campaigning on behalf of animal protection legislation and public education — an unexpected, seemingly unrelated second career for a man who remains best remembered today, more than a century later, specifically for a single hurriedly written hymn about a person being found, much like a lost sheep, by a patiently searching shepherd.
