271. Sweet Peace, the Gift of God’s Love

The Story Behind the Hymn

Peter Philip Bilhorn wrote "Sweet Peace, the Gift of God's Love" in 1887 at the suggestion of Daniel W. Whittle, the same evangelist who had earlier written "I Know Whom I Have Believed." The two men were traveling together by train to Iowa for a series of meetings when Whittle, evidently familiar with Bilhorn's gift for melody, proposed the idea that became this hymn's subject: the peace that comes as a direct gift of God's love, rather than something achieved or earned.

Bilhorn, who worked closely with Whittle as a singer and song leader in evangelistic campaigns much as Ira Sankey had worked with Moody, wrote both words and music himself, and the finished hymn was published the following year, 1888, in his own collection Bilhorn's Crowning Glory No. 1, issued in Chicago.

The hymn moves through a clear, simple sequence: peace as a strain of music that will not leave the mind, peace secured specifically through Christ's death on the cross, peace received at the moment of surrendering to Him as Lord, and finally peace maintained only by staying close to Him — each verse ending in the same phrase that gives the hymn its title, repeated so often across its four verses and refrain that the words themselves begin to function like the "sweet strain" the first verse describes.

Bilhorn went on to a long career as a gospel singer and hymn writer, publishing under several pseudonyms in addition to his own name, but this hymn — born out of a train conversation with Whittle rather than any personal crisis or dramatic testimony — remained one of his most widely sung contributions to the gospel hymn tradition.