Are You Washed In The Blood: A Song History
“Are You Washed in the Blood?” is a gospel song with both words and music by Elisha A. Hoffman (1839–1929), and Hymnary.org dates it to 1878, when it appeared in Spiritual Songs for Gospel Meetings and the Sunday School, issued in Cleveland, Ohio, by Barker & Smellie.[1][2] Hoffman, ordained in 1868, worked for eleven years in Cleveland publishing for the Evangelical Association and in the 1880s ministered at several chapels and churches in Cleveland and Grafton; over his career he wrote more than 2,000 gospel songs, among them “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” (1894), and edited some fifty songbooks.[3] Its text, framed as a direct question to the listener, draws on scripture passages that Hymnary.org traces from the Psalms and Isaiah through the Gospels to Revelation.[1]
W. H. Rease, Interior view of West Branch camp meeting, Clinton County, Pennsylvania, color lithograph, c. 1872. Library of Congress. No known restrictions.
The song traveled widely. Hymnary.org indexes the text in 542 hymnals and Hoffman’s tune, in 11.9.11.9 meter with refrain, in 360, including books in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian and other languages.[1][2] It also entered early country recording: Ernest Stoneman & His Dixie Mountaineers, an ensemble that included Uncle Eck Dunford and Hattie Stoneman, recorded it on July 25, 1927, at the Bristol Sessions.[4]
For mountain dulcimer players, Stephen Seifert includes the song in Join the Jam: Gospel Edition, his collection of 68 sacred pieces set for DAD tuning.[5]
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