The author of both words and music of this invitation hymn told how it was written. It was 1918, and she saw the following words in a pamphlet by missionary Lillias Trotter: “So then, turn your eyes upon Him. Look full into His face, and you will find that the things of earth will acquire strange, new dimness.”

“Suddenly,” she said, “as if commanded to stop and listen, I stood still, and singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus, with not one conscious moment of putting word to word to make rhyme, or note to note to make melody. . . . The verses were written . . . the same week, after the usual manner of composition, but nonetheless dictated by the Holy Spirit.”

The song was published by the British National Sunday School Union in Glad Songs, 1922, a book of 67 of Lemmel’s works. It became popular in England, then moved to America in 1924 when Harry D. Clarke printed it in his Gospel Truth in Song, No. 2.

Helen Howarth Lemmel was born November 14, 1864, in Wardle, Greater Manchester, England, the daughter of a Wesleyan Methodist pastor. When she was 9 the family moved to America and settled in Wisconsin. She was a fine singer and studied extensively in the United States and Germany, using her talent in concerts, churches, and with a women’s quartet in the Chautauqua Circuit. After a time of teaching privately, she held positions at Monday Bible Institute at both the Chicago and Los Angeles campuses. Her final home for 57 years was in Seattle, Washington, where she was an active member of the Ballard Baptist Church before her death November 1, 1961. Some 500 hymns and a large volume of children’s music came from her facile pen. She died at age 96.

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