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Readings · Hymns

It Is Well with My Soul

Horatio G. Spafford · 18 lines

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows, like sea-billows, roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Chorus

It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought—
My sin—not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh, my soul!

And, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
“Even so”—it is well with my soul.

About this reading

Horatio G. Spafford, a Chicago lawyer, wrote these words, and his friend Philip P. Bliss wrote the music; the two were published together in Gospel Hymns No. 2 in 1876. The Psalter Hymnal Handbook records that Spafford's four daughters died when the ship Ville du Havre sank in November 1873, and that he wrote the words at sea soon afterward.

First published
1876
Text from
Gospel Hymns No. 2 (1876)

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