This hymn emphasizes a continually increasing Christian experience, much in line with the testimony of the apostle Paul:  “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after” (Phil. 3:12). The author has been forgiven, but he desires to remain free from sin; he has received blessing, yet desires more power; he has peace, but he desires purity.

Johnson Oatman, Jr., was born April 21, 1856, at Medford, New Jersey, and educated at the New Jersey Collegiate Institute, Bordentown. He joined the Methodist Episcopal Church and was licensed to preach, later being ordained by Bishop Merrill. However, he remained for a while in the mercantile business with his father, then he started his own successful insurance business at Mt. Holly, New Jersey. Rather than regularly filling a specific pulpit, Oatman chose to minister to the whole world through the song-poems he wrote. More than 3,000 hymns and gospel songs flowed from his pen, set to music variously by William Kirkpatrick, Charles H. Gabriel, E. O. Excell, and John R. Sweney. “Count Your Blessings,” “No, Not One,” and “When Our  Ships Come Sailing Home,” were among his most successful songs. One more in SDAH in “Higher Ground,” No. 625. In a book published in Boston in early part of his career as a songwriter, Oatman made the following dedication:

Let others sing of rights and wrongs,

Sing anything that pleases:

But while they’re singing other songs,

I’ll sing a song for Jesus.

He died at Norman, Oklahoma, September 25, 1922. The tune DEEPER YET, named after the words of the refrain, was composed by William James Kirkpatrick (18-1921; see Biographies).