In the 1870s Bishop John H.  Vincent was one of the confounders of the Chautauqua Literacy and Scientific Circle. Students gathered in conference in a summer retreat at an old Methodist camp meeting site at Lake Chautauqua in the Finger Lakes region of   New York State. Their purpose was for self- improvement not only academically but spiritually. To assist in this latter function, in 1877 Vincent asked   Mary Artemisia  Lathbury (1841-1913; see SDAH 51) to write a study hymn for the group. She accordingly wrote the first two stanzas of hymn which derives a spiritual lesson from the feeding of the multitude with physical bread: “And looking up to heaven  he blessed ,and brake ,and  gave the loaves to his disciples and the disciples to the multitude” (Matt.14:19.The two original stanzas are similar in structures:(1) Break the bread of life as Thou didst break the actual loaves; and (2) Bless the truth ,which is the bread of life, as Thou didst bless the actual bread. A third stanza was added by Alexander Groves (1842-1909) in the September 1913 issue of the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, London, The last stanza is another addition.                                        

Lathbury also wrote SDAH 51,”Day Is Dying in the West.” BREAD OF LIFE was composed in the summer of 1877 by William Fisk Sherwin (1826-1888; see Biographies) especially for the words. It first appeared in print in The Calvary Selections of Spiritual Songs, 1878.