This hymn was written on December 9,1769, by William Cowper (1731-1800; see SDAH 107), at a time his friend and companion, Mrs. Mary Unwin, was seriously ill. He wrote in a letter to his aunt the next day that he began to compose the lines before daybreak, but fell asleep after the first two lines. When he awoke, the “third and fourth were whispered to my heart in a way which I have often experienced.” Then in his letter there follow the six stanzas of this hymn, of which SDAH has 1, 4, 3, and 5.

The hymn was published in the second edition to his friend Richard Conyers’ Collection of Psalms and Hymns, 1772, and then later in 1779 in the Olney Hymns, Book I, No. 111, under the title “Walking With God.” The complete hymn in the original order of stanzas shows a transition from Cowper’s gloom to triumphant climax, somewhat typical of his ups and downs in life. Cowper also wrote SDAH 107, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” and SDAH 336, “There Is a Fountain.” 

MANOAH is an adaptation made by Henry Wellington Greatorex, appearing in his Church Music, 1851, though the name, the father of Samson (Judges 13: 2), has no related significance. Greatorex was born in Burton-On-Trent, Staffordshire, England, on December 24,1813; he emigrated to the United States in 1838. He had received an early musical training from his father, who was a teacher and composer, and organist at Westminster Abbey. Arriving in Hartford, Connecticut, Greatorex became organist at the Congregational Church there, then later at Protestant Episcopal churches in New York, first St. Paul’s and then Calvary. It was while at the latter church that he published his Church Music, 1851. He moved to Charleston, South Carolina, to another post, but unfortunately contracted yellow fever and died there on September 10, 1858. Greatorex also arranged SDAH 48, SEY-MOUR, and composed SDAH 660, GLORIA PATRIA.