Читать книгу Sisters In Song; Women Hymn Writers - Leslie Clay - Страница 17

“A Child of the King”

Katie, as she was known, lived in Manlius, New York until 1898. She moved to Washington D.C., but kept a summer home in New York. She contributed a number of poems to the Northern Christian Advocate, a Methodist revival magazine, in Syracuse, New York.

One day in 1876, she attended a rousing Methodist camp meeting. The stirring sermon was based on Romans 8:17: “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God.” Before the now unknown preacher finished, he shouted, “We are the children of a king!” Recalling that night, she wrote, “I felt as if I were walking on air as I left that service and as I walked toward my cottage. The complete set of words had come to me and I entitled them ‘The Child of a King.’” Her text was sent to the Northern Christian Advocate and it was printed in the February 1877 issue. A young pastor, John Sumner, had been praying for a new gospel song to replace one that would have been written by his friend who had died before he could compose it. When he saw Buell’s words in the magazine, he knew his prayer was answered. He composed a tune to fit the poem. Harriett lived humbly. You can hear her life in the very final words of her hymn:

A tent or a cottage, why should I care?

They’re building a palace for me over there.

Though exiled from home, yet still may I sing;

All glory to God, I’m a child of the King.