Softly and Tenderly
When Jesus heard it, He said to them,...I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." Mark 2:17
The author of this hymn, Will Lamartine Thompson, was born on November 7, 1847, in East Liverpool, Ohio, a small town on the Ohio River across from Kentucky. His father was a local merchant and a member of the Ohio State Legislature. Will attended Mt. Union College in nearby Alliance, Ohio. His musical abilities took him on to the Boston Conservatory of Music and to Leipzig, Germany, to study with the greats.
Will was interested in writing secular and patriotic songs; but when he traveled to Cleveland to sell his music manuscripts, he was offered only twenty-five dollars. Feeling slighted, Will rolled up his music, returned to East Liverpool, and prayed about what to do next.
When his father sent him to New York on business, Will took his songs to a printer, intent on publishing and selling them himself. "My home on the Old Ohio," and "Gathering Shells from the Sea" were hits, and Will soon became known as the "Bard of Ohio."
He became a millionaire.
The young man credited the Lord with his success, and wanting to return thanks, he dedicated himself to writing Christian songs - and Christian songs only. He established Will L. Thompson & Co. with offices in East Liverpool and Chicago, and his quartet numbers sold two million copies.
In 1880, this hymn, "Softly and Tenderly," appeared in a book entitled Sparkling Gems, Nos. 1 and 2 Combined, published by Thompson & Co.
Despite his success and wealth, Will was known as a simple and sincere man. He felt concerned that while famous musicians traveled to the great cities to perform before large crowds, people in the rural areas and small towns seldom had anyone to come and minister to them in like fashion. So he loaded an upright piano on his two-horse wagon and drove into the country to sing and play his own songs in small churches throughout the Midwest.
In the late 1890's, he paid a visit to evangelist D.L. Moody, who was very ill and near death. Most visitors had been turned away, but when Moody heard that Thompson was downstairs, he called for him. "Will," he said, "I would rather have written 'Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling,' than anything I have been able to do in my whole life."
Excerpt from "Then Sings My Soul" by Robert J. Morgan
Thomas Nelson Publishers
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Soft-ly and ten-der-ly Je-sus is call-ing, Call-ing for you
and for me. See, on the por-tals He's wait-ing and Watch-ing,
Watch-ing for you and for me. come home, come home---- Ye who
are wea-ry, come home;---- Ear-nest-ly, ten-der-ly Je-sus is
call-ing, Call-ing "O sin-ner, come home!"
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© 2006 DCK Music Group
All Rights Reserved
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