Washington Gladden was the editor of the magazine Sunday Afternoon.

In the March 1879 issue, in a regular column, The Still Hour, he included a poem he had written entitled “Walking With God.” It had three stanzas of eight lines each. It was shortened by Charles H. Richards to a hymn of four stanzas of four lines each, as we now have it. It appeared in his Songs of Christian Praise, 1880. The theme progresses from walking with God to closer company with God, and ultimately to living with God, which was the experience of Enoch.

Gladden was born on February 11, 1836, at Potts Grove, Pennsylvania. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1859 and was ordained as a Congregational minister in 1860. He served in the states of New York and Then Massachusetts until 1871, when he turned to journalism for three years. He returned to the ministry and in 1882 was transferred to Columbus, Ohio, where he served as pastor of the First Congregational Church for more than 30 years. He was moderator of the National Council of Congregational Churches from 1904 to 1907, and was the author of 32 books. An outstanding preacher, lecturer, and writer, he promoted the social gospel and attacked political corruption and economic evils. He fostered the closer cooperation of the different churches and popularized biblical criticism. He was given three honorary doctorates, one conferred by the Roman Catholic University of Notre Dame. He died at Columbus, Ohio, on July 2, 1918.

The tune MARYTON, which Gladden preferred more than any other for his words, was composed by Henry Percy Smith. It appeared in his Church Hymns With Tunes, 1874. It was composed especially for the words of John Keble’s hymn, “Sun of My Soul Thou Savior Dear” (SDAH 502). Smith was born in 1825 on the island of Malta. He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a B.A. in 1848 and an M.A. in 1850. In 1849 he was ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church and in 1850, a priest. His first appointment was to assist the Reverend Charles Kingsley in his parish at Eversley, Hampshire; his next was in 1851 as perpetual curate at Farnborough in the same county. He was vicar at Great Barton in Suffolk from 1868 to 1882, then moved to Cannes in France, where he served as chaplain until 1892. He was appointed canon of Gibraltar Cathedral until he retired to in Hampshire, England, where he died on January 28, 1898.

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