The theme for this hymn was suggested to William Hunter by a railway accident in which there were a large number of fatalities. However, the presence of several medical men on the train reduced the number of casualties, and the spiritual lesson is drawn in these words. Under the title “Christ the Physician,” the eight -stanza hymn appeared in Hunter’s Song of Devotion, 1859. While Jesus is first introduced as the Great Physician, the emphasis throughout is on the name of Jesus, which means Savior. A suitable text summarizing the hymn would be: “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

William Hunter was born May 26, 1811, in Antrim Country, Ireland. While he was still a child, his parents move to York, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Madison College, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, he spent several years teaching and preaching before beginning his work as an editor, working for some 16 years for the Pittsburgh Conference Journal and its successor, Christian Advocate. Beginning in the 1855 he taught Hebrew and Biblical literature at Allegheny College. The author of more than 125 Hymns, he complied Minstrel of Zion, 1845; Select Melodies, 1851, which included this hymn; and Songs of Devotions, 1859. In 1876 he was appointed one of a committee of 12 by the General Conference of the Methodist Church to make a revision of the hymnal, which was published in 1878 as the Hymnal of the Methodist Episcopal Church. During intervals between his preaching and editing, he was presiding elder and pastor in the west Virginia Conference, concluding his his ministry as pastor in Alliance Ohio, where he died on October 18, 1877. Hunter also wrote SDAH 437, “I’m Going Home”. 

The tune was specially written for the text by John Hart Stockton. It is in the form AABA, the first two and the fourth scores being the same. 

Stockton was born on April 19, 1813, at New Hope, Pennsylvania, in a Presbyterian home, but was converted at a Methodist camp meeting. He became a Methodist minister, pastoring in turn several churches in the New Jersey Conference. He died at Philadelphia on march 25, 1877. He published two volumes of gospel songs, Salvation Melodies, 1874, and Precious Songs, 1875. He also contributed both words and music of SDAH 279,” Only trust Him,” to a ten-unnamed tune.

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.