eHymns.org

Born: December 19, 1808, Old Broughton, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Died: July 31, 1889, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Buried: Canongate churchyard.

Bonar has been called “the prince of Scottish hymn writers.” After graduating from the University of Edinburgh, he was ordained in 1838, and became pastor of the North Parish, Kelso. He joined the Free Church of Scotland after the “Disruption” of 1843, and for a while edited the church’s The Border Watch. Bonar remained in Kelso for 28 years, after which he moved to the Chalmers Memorial church in Edinburgh, where he served the rest of his life. Bonar wrote more than 600 hymns. At a memorial service following his death, his friend, Rev. E. H. Lundie, said:

His hymns were written in very varied circumstances, sometimes
timed by the tinkling brook that babbled near him; sometimes
attuned to the ordered tramp of the ocean, whose crested
waves broke on the beach by which he wandered; sometimes set
to the rude music of the railway train that hurried him
to the scene of duty; sometimes measured by the silent
rhythm of the midnight stars that shone above him.

Bonar’s works include:

Hymns of Faith and Hope, 1857


Hymns

Almighty Comforter and Friend
All That I Was
Angel Voices, Sweetly Singing
Ascend, Beloved, to the Joy
Bathed in Unfallen Sunlight
Fresh from the Throne of Glory
Be Brave, My Brother
Be Still, My Soul, Jehovah Loveth Thee
Bear Thou My Burden
Beloved, Let Us Love
Beyond the Smiling and the Weeping
Blessed Be God, Our God
Blessèd Night, When First That Plain
Blessing and Honor and Glory and Power
Brethren, Arise, Let us Go Hence
Bridegroom Comes, The
By the Cross of Jesus Standing
Calm Me, My God
Christ Has Done the Mighty Work
Church Has Waited Long, The
Come, Lord, and Tarry Not
Come, Mighty Spirit, Penetrate
Cross, It Standeth Fast, The
Deep Down Beneath the Unresting Surge
Done Is the Work That Saves
Everlasting Praises
Far Down the Ages Now
Father, Make Use of Me
Father, Our Children Keep
Fear Not the Foe, Thou Flock of God
Few More Years Shall Roll, A
Fill Thou My Life
Finish Thy Work, the Time Is Short
For Lack of Love I Languish
For the Bread and for the Wine
For Thee We Long and Pray
Free One Makes You Free, The
From the Cross the Blood Is Falling
From This Bleak Hill of Storms
Glory Be to God the Father
Glory Be to Him Who Loved Us
Go, Labor On: Spend, and Be Spent
Go Up, Go Up, My Heart
Great Ruler of the Land and Sea
He Called Them, and They Left
He Has Come, the Christ of God
He Is Near (I Know Not When the Lord Will Come)
He Liveth Long Who Liveth Well
Help Me, My God, to Speak
Here, O My Lord, I See Thee
Here Shall Death’s Triumph End
Holy Father, Hear My Cry
Holy Father, Mighty God
Ho, Ye Thirsty, Parched and Fainting
How Are My Troubles Multiplied
How Sweetly Doth He Show His Face
I Ask a Perfect Creed
I Close My Heavy Eye
I Hear the Words of Love
I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say
I Lay My Sins on Jesus
I See the Crowd in Pilate’s Hall
I Thought upon My Sins
I Was a Wandering Sheep
I Weep, but Do Not Yield
Jesus, My Sorrow Lies Too Deep
Jesus, Sun and Shield Art Thou
Jesus the Christ of God
Jesus, While This Rough Desert Soil
Jesus, Whom Angel Hosts Adore
Let There Be Light, Jehovah Said
Lie Down, Frail Body, Here
Light Hath Arisen, The
Light of Life So Softly Shining
Light of the World! Forever, Ever Shining
Lo, God, Our God, Has Come
Long, Long Deferred, Now Come at Last
Lord, Give Me Light to Do Thy Work
Make Haste, O Man, to Live
Make Use of Me, My God
Master’s Touch, The
Nay, ’Tis Not What We Fancied It
No Blood, No Altar, Now
No, Not Despairingly
No Seas Again Shall Ever Sever
No Shadows Yonder
Not to Ourselves Again
Not What I Am, O Lord
Not What These Hands Have Done
I Bless the Christ of God
Not What My Hands Have Done
Not with the Light and Vain
Now in Parting, Father, Bless Us
O Everlasting Light
O Light of Light, Shine In
O Love Invisible, Yet Infinite
O Love of God, How Strong and True
O Love That Casts Out Fear
O Strong to Save and Bless
O This Soul, How Dark and Blind
O ’Tis Not What We Fancied It
On the Great Love of God I Lean
On Thee, O Jesus, Strongly Leaning
Oppressed with Noonday’s Scorching Heat
Peace to the World
Peace upon Peace, Like Wave on Wave
Rejoice and Be Glad!
Rest for the Toiling Hand
Safe Across the Waters
Shall This Life of Mine Be Wasted?
Silent, like Men in Solemn Haste
Sinful Man Am I, A
Sing Them, My Children
Soon Shall the Trump of God
Sounds the Trumpet from Afar
Sower Divine, Sow the Good Seed in Me
Speak, Lips of Mine
Speaketh the Sinner’s Sin within my Heart
Spirit of Everlasting Grace
Still One in Life and One in Death
Surely, Yon Heaven, Where Angels See God’s Face
That City with the Jeweled Crest
That Clime Is Not Like This Dull Clime of Ours
Thee in the Loving Bloom of Morn
There Is a Morning Star, My Soul
These Are the Crowns That We Shall Wear
This Is Not My Place of Resting
This Is the Day of Toil
Through Good Report and Evil, Lord
Thy Thoughts Are Here, My God
Thy Way, Not Mine, O Lord
Thy Works, Not Mine, O Christ
Till the Day Dawn
Time’s Sun is Fast Setting
To Him Who Spread the Skies
To Jehovah, God of Might
To the Name of God on High
Trustingly, Trustingly
Tomb Is Empty, The
Unto th’Eternal Hills
Upward Where the Stars Are Burning
We Take the Peace Which He Hath Won
Weep, Pilgrim, Weep
When the Weary, Seeking Rest
Where the Faded Flower Shall Freshen
Yes, for Me He Careth
Yet There Is Room

Source: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/b/o/n/bonar_h.html

Born: July 4, 1840, West Fellowfield, Pennsylvania.

Died: July 9, 1907, Kinsman, Ohio.

Buried: Kinsman, Ohio.

Pseudonym: G. M. J.

The following article by Gladys Doonan, “To Reap for the Master,” appeared in Challenge, December 28, 1986. Used by permission of Regular Baptist Press, Schaumburg, Illinois.

Even the festivities of the Christmas season that December of 1876 couldn’t drive them from his mind—those notes his friend Philip had written to him just a few days before the holiday. He read them over and over again and almost decided to yield to the urging of their message—almost, but not quite. His dreams of personal ambition were still too precious. How could he give them up?

James McGranahan was a talented and cultured American musician who lived from 1840 to 1907. He was gifted with a rare tenor voice and studied for years with eminent teachers who urged him to train for a career in opera. Of course, this advice opened up to his imagination dazzling prospects of fame and fortune. And he was assured time and time again it was all within his grasp.

James McGranahan was a Christian, and he had a Christian friend Philip P. Bliss who was concerned about him. His friend was also a capable musician who had gone through many of the same experiences in his younger days as a singer. However, he had been sensitive to the claims of the Lord on his life and had yielded his talents to God for full-time Christian service.

Though only two years older than McGranahan, Philip Bliss, at 38, had a good dozen years of Christian work behind him. He was then serving as a gospel soloist with the great evangelist Major D. W. Whittle. How he thrilled to the response of the great crowds who gathered for their campaigns and to the working of the Holy Spirit through his music! He longed for his friend James to know that thrill as well!

Philip Bliss and his wife were preparing for a trip home to Pennsylvania for Christmas. There was much to be done, but in the midst of all the bustle and hurry Bliss felt strangely compelled to take time out to write McGranahan a letter. He kept thinking of his 36-year-old friend, who was still studying music, still preparing for—what? Would it be opera or would it be the Lord’s work?

Philip Bliss prayed as he wrote that he would know the right words to put down. He knew the Lord was dealing with James and was eager for his friend to make the right decision.

Finally the letter was done. Bliss, needing encouragement and approval for what he had said, read it to Major Whittle. In the letter he compared McGranahan’s long course of musical training to a man whetting his scythe for the harvest. The climax came as he strongly urged, “Stop whetting the scythe and strike into the grain to reap for the Master!”

The letter was sent on its way and quickly reached its destination. Those words touched James McGranahan as no others had before. He could think of nothing else. “Strike into the grain to reap for the Master…to reap for the Master…to reap for the Master!” Day and night those words were before him.

One week later, December 19, 1876, the man who had penned the words was dead. The train returning the Blisses from Pennsylvania to Chicago where Philip was scheduled to sing at Moody Tabernacle broke through a railroad bridge at Ashtabula, Ohio. It plunged into a 60-foot chasm and caught fire. Among the 100 who perished in the disaster were the 38-year-old gospel singer and his wife.

When James McGranahan received news of the tragedy he rushed immediately to the scene of the accident. And it was there, for the first time, that he met Major Whittle.

The evangelist later recorded his thoughts on the occasion: “Here before me stands the man that Mr. Bliss has chosen to be his successor.”

The two men made the return trip to Chicago together, and as they rode they talked. Before they reached the city James McGranahan decided to yield his life, his talents, his all to the service of his Savior. He would “strike into the grain to reap for the Master.”

The operatic world lost a star that day, but the Christian world gained one of its sweetest gospel singers. James McGranahan was greatly used in evangelistic campaigns throughout America, in Great Britain and in Ireland.

Sources

* Hall, pp. 191-5
* Hustad, p. 285

Hymns

1. Go Ye into All the World
2. O the Crown
3. Shall You? Shall I?

Music

1. Are You Coming Home Tonight?
2. Banner of the Cross, The
3. Behold, What Love!
4. Believe Ye That I Am Able?
5. Beloved, Now Are We
6. By Grace Are Ye Saved
7. Church of God Is One, The
8. Christ Liveth in Me
9. Christ Returneth
10. Come
11. Come Believing!
12. Crowning Day, The
13. El Nathan
14. Every Day Will I Bless Thee
15. Frances
16. Go Ye into All the World
17. Hallelujah for the Cross!
18. He Is Not Here, But Is Risen!
19. He Will Hide Me
20. I Find Thee So Precious
21. I Know Not the Hour
22. I Left It All with Jesus
23. I Will Pass Over You
24. I’ll Stand by until the Morning
25. Jesus Is Coming
26. Kinsman
27. McGranahan
28. My Redeemer
29. Neither Do I Condemn Thee
30. Neumeister
31. Oh, Revive Us by Thy Word
32. Preach the Gospel
33. Sometime We’ll Understand
34. There Shall Be Showers of Blessing
35. Thou Remainest
36. Thy God Reigneth!
37. Verily, I Say unto You

Source: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/m/c/g/mcgranahan_j.html

Born in the Van Wert Ohio County Hospital on June 27, 1960, Alvin (Bud) Herman Manz, Jr. was the 3rd of 4 sons born to Betty Manz and firstborn to her second husband, Alvin.

His older siblings, John Paul Rose, Jr. (1956) and Joseph Henry Rose (1957), were born to John Paul Rose. In 1958, John Sr. passed away leaving Betty with 2 little boys to care for until she met Alvin Manz and got married to him on October 3, 1959.

Bud's younger sibling, Robert James Manz, Sr., was born on August 23, 1961.

Bud never married, instead he lives with his father just south of Defiance Ohio.