O for a Closer Walk with God -- William Cowper

 

There must have been many times that this despondent poet wished he were in an ancient character’s shoes, as he read about the close of that man’s life. The Englishman William Cowper was often in the throes of gloom, including on one occasion as a 38-year old when he said ‘O for a Closer Walk with God’, because anxiety about a close friend’s serious illness consumed him. What could he do, except write about his feelings? Having a like-minded friend with whom he could share his poetic streak helped, and certainly was part of why William’s thoughts survive today, 250 years later.

 

William Cowper’s poetry might be described as the therapy that he needed throughout his life. Perhaps one root cause of his lifelong struggle with depression was in his childhood, when his mother died giving birth to his brother (John), an incident upon which William still reflected some 50 years later. Other episodes in his teens and early adulthood led to suicide attempts and time spent in an asylum for recovery. In the wake of this dark period, Cowper’s faith and poetic skills became synergistic, and in no small way coaxed by the relationship he developed with a couple, Morley and Mary Unwin, and a fellow poet and preacher John Newton. The Olney Hymns that Cowper and Newton collaborated to compile was a very notable outcome of this friendship, and contains Cowper’s ‘O for a Closer Walk…’. William reportedly penned his six verses during a serious health challenge in 1769 for Mary Unwin, whom William regarded as a guardian, perhaps even as a mother-like figure in his life. He lived with the Unwins, including the widowed Mary, for over two decades. It’s suggested that Cowper’s verses were a reflection upon a verse he read one day about Enoch and his walk with God (Genesis 5:24), which apparently stretched into Eternity when God took him. Cowper’s heart for Mary’s well-being was in anguish, as he read about the closeness of Enoch and his Creator. Was it this relationship that coaxed to the surface William’s own words, like a salve to calm his own spirit? Perhaps that soothing effect was what caused William to doze off, then to awaken with additional verses in his head for the song he would soon complete. Cowper’s verses might be interpreted as autobiographical, when he calls out in verses 2 and 3 with words that sound like someone who was missing a peace he once had .. ‘Where is the blessedness I knew…what peaceful hours I once enjoyed…’, now occupied by ‘an aching void’. The God he invites to return to his life is ‘O holy dove’,  and a ‘sweet messenger’ (v.3). Perhaps we could say God heard Cowper’s prayer-like verses, because Mary reportedly recovered and lived for another 27 years.

 

The ‘calm’ and ‘serene’ (v.6) was what William sought from a walk with God. Nevertheless, William Cowper still struggled with the gloom, even late in his life following the death of Mary Unwin in 1796. So, is God not effective in the human life, including in one as troubled as William’s evidently was, on occasion? It seems that William could not find his own answers at times, but he certainly knew who cared about him. One of his other hymns reflected that he could not understand God, that He was a mystery (see blog entry for Sep. 12, 2009). And yet, William still tried, in his feeble way, to reach Him. Strangely, if William had been ‘strong’ by some people’s definition, can we say he would have written as he did and given you and me a voice for our times of melancholy? Hey, even Jesus cried out in a garden, and said ‘Why…’ (have you forsaken me – Matthew 27:46). The point is not whether I cry out, but to whom.  

 

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; 101 More Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985; and Then Sings My Soul, by Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.   

 

Also see this link, showing all four original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/o/f/o/r/oforaclo.htm

 

Also see this link for author’s biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cowper

And here also: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/o/w/p/cowper_w.htm 

There is a Fountain – William Cowper

If you had been saved from death physically, as well as spiritually, how might you respond? Perhaps it could be said that both of these states of being were on William Cowper’s (see his picture here) mind in his 40^th year in 1771, when he thought about his life and wrote some poetry that we know as “There Is a Fountain”.  It’s likely that he was reading some of his bible, and that his friends at the time influenced his thinking. Close associates’ influence on a writer’s creativity would not be uncommon, but particularly in this Englishman’s life, he needed friends to help sustain his mind and emotions.

An examination of William Cowper’s first 40 years need not be too in-depth to discover what drove him. He’d had many stress points as a child and adult, which eventually led to temporary insanity and suicidal behavior in the decade before his 1771 composition about “...a Fountain”. This fountain might have also been metaphorically described as his oasis.  The loss of his mother at age six, an uncle’s refusal to allow his marriage to a cousin, and finally an agonizing nervous tension over an approaching public examination for a clerk’s position in the House of Lords were some of the incidents that pushed him over the edge in 1763. With the care of a like-minded poet (Nathaniel Cotton) in an asylum, and later friends like John Newton (composer of Amazing Grace), Cowper recovered. It’s reported that Cowper’s allegiance to Christ was spurred as he read a bible (Romans 3:25) during the 18 months under Cotton’s treatment. Seven years later, in the midst of his friendship with Newton, Cowper was apparently reading his bible yet again – Zechariah 13:1. Was he still feeling the pangs of guilt rooted in some transgression, as he read about the fountain’s cleansing power? Were he and Newton perchance discussing grace’s startling effects? Was “… a Fountain” a herald of Newton’s efforts just a few years hence? (He composed his most famous ode apparently in 1773.) Cowper and Newton’s collaboration didn’t end with those two hymns, which were among the 300-plus hymns the two contributed to the Olney Hymnal that debuted in 1779.

Yet, Cowper’s roller-coaster life continued after the creation of “There Is a Fountain”. He had another serious bout with madness in 1773, which another friend, Mary Unwin, helped him overcome.  So, one might ask, ‘Did Cowper forget to keep drinking from the Fountain?’ We don’t know, but it’s likely that 18^th Century medicine, particularly for mental health maladies like Cowper’s, wasn’t totally effective. Even today, mental health patients have relapses. But, Cowper’s therapy included devoted friends, like Unwin and Newton, and the Providential One of whom he wrote. He does intervene in life, Cowper concluded (see song-story on “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” elsewhere in this blog). This sometimes mad-composer continued to write poetry through the remainder of his terrestrial life in the latter 18^th Century, while staying close to friends. And, two of the more obscure verses of Cowper’s “Fountain” hymn tell of his expectation to play a harp in the afterlife. These two verses –from the deep recesses of Cowper’s mind – aren’t so crazy, are they? If your life becomes unhinged sometimes, maybe you should access not just Cowper’s mind, but the remedy he found. In fact, you’d be crazy not to.

       

The following website has all seven original verses, including the last two that we contemporaries rarely see and sing:

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/t/f/o/tfountfb.htm

Information on the life of William Cowper is found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cowper

http://www.hymnary.org/person/Cowper_W

See more information on the song discussed above in The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.  Also, see Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.

God Moves in a Mysterious Way – William Cowper

Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? (Job 11:7)

William Cowper (pronounced Coo-per) had evidently experienced in a personal way, and probably on more than one occasion, the mystery of God. If I had struggled emotionally as Cowper did throughout his life, perhaps I would have thrown in the towel, so to speak. After all, who would choose to worship someone he could not understand, whose ways left one feeling lost, maybe empty. Have you been there? There have been times when I’ve been blue, wondering what to do with myself. To be alone, without hope, is a pit. It’s at that point that most of us would, hopefully, be coaxed to talk to a friend or in a more serious case perhaps even a professional. Whatever the course of action, its objective would be therapeutic. Take a few moments and consider William Cowper’s therapy, which is revealed in his life-hymn “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” that he wrote in 1774.

Cowper had occasional depression much of his life, probably rooted in early life when his mother died when he was six years old. He also struggled with memories of teasing at school and his father’s interference in a relationship with a woman as a young adult. As a young man, his father also urged him to study law, from which he suffered such mental anguish that he attempted suicide. As a patient in a mental institution, he recovered, and discovered therapy that had three legs – Christianity, poetry, and friendship. He discovered his need for God, and fused that with the poetry he began to compose, and with the camaraderie of Christians. One of them was John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace”, his collaborator throughout the remainder of his life. Together, they produced the Olney Hymnal in 1779.

“God Moves in a Mysterious Way” is, some believe, the last hymn that Cowper wrote, and though he fought the gloom, one senses in the song’s words that he had at last found a method for peace. Some believe the hymn was composed after Cowper was providentially delivered from a suicide attempt one evening. It’s said that his carriage to the Thames River became lost on the way to the place where Cowper intended to take his own life, and instead returned him unexpectedly to his home. From that incident, he may have written this great hymn. He rose above his pangs of despair with this formula: God can decipher the things in my life that perplex and trouble me. It’s said his last words were “I’m not shut out of heaven after all”, a hope-filled testament for anyone with lingering doubt about salvation’s assurance. God may often be inscrutable, but it seems as though Cowper had discovered that’s OK. If I feel mystified by things in my life, Cowper says in his composition, ‘Give it to the One above’. Who better than the Mysterious One can make sense out of riddles?

The following website has all six verses: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/m/gmovesmw.htm

Information on the life of William Cowper is found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cowper See more information on the song discussed above in The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006. Also, see Amazing Grace: 36 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; and 101 Hymn Stories by Kenneth Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982.

See the following blog and another website on the song’s specific and inspirational story of how it was written: http://wordwisehymns.com/2009/11/15/today-in-1731-william-cowper-born/

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/m/gmovesmw.htm