This hymn made its first appearance in D. B. Towner’s Hymns Tried and True, 1911, published by the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago. The first stanza is another way of saying what Paul said in Romans 5:20: “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”

Julia Harriette Johnston, born January 21, 1849, into a Presbyterian minister’s family in Salineville, Ohio, moved with her family to Peoria at age 6, where her father pastored the First Presbyterian Church the remainder of his life. She never married, and for more than 40 years she was the leader of the young children’s Sunday school in that church. For 20 years she was president of the Presbyterian Missionary Society of Peoria, which was founded by her mother. A prolific writer of materials for children, she published several books: School of the Master, 1880; Bright Threads, 1897; Indian and Spanish Neighbors, 1905; and Fifty Missionary Heroes, 1913. Some 500 hymn poems came from her own pen, set to music by various composers. She died in Peoria March 6, 1919.

Daniel Brink Towner was born March 5, 1850, in Rome, Pennsylvania, and received his early musical training from his music teacher-father. When he was a teenager, his beautiful bass-baritone voice earned for him the title “Wonderful Boy Bass” as he sang the popular bass solos in concerts and did oratorio work. He studied music with George Root and George Webb and began to write songs even before he studied harmony. From 1 870 to 1885 he served as music director for Methodist churches in New York, Ohio, and Kentucky. He did solo work for evangelist Dwight L. Moody in many of the large cities of America before assuming the presidency of Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. Here he helped to train and influence the work of a large number of noted American gospel singers. In his later years he used his talent as a leader of congregational singing in great evangelistic meetings in England.

Towner wrote the music for more than 2,000 gospel songs published all over the world and had a part in editing 14 song books, three of which were for male voices. He was at Longwood, Missouri, when he died October 3, 1919. Other songs by him in SDAH are No. 508, “Anywhere With Jesus,” and No. 590, “Trust and Obey.”