Wonderful Words Of Life: A Song History
"Wonderful Words of Life" is entirely the work of the gospel songwriter Philip P. Bliss, who wrote the text and composed the melody.[1][2] According to John Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, whose entry on Bliss is reproduced at Hymnary.org, the hymn was first printed in 1874 in a paper titled Words of Life,[1] and the tune is still known by that name, WORDS OF LIFE, which Hymnary.org dates to the same year and lists as public domain.[2] Hymnary.org gives the text's meter as 8.6.8.6.6.6 with a refrain, files it under topics such as the Bible as the Word of God and evangelism, counts it in close to 700 hymnals, and lists versions in languages including Spanish, Swedish, Swahili and Malagasy.[3]
Gothic Bible (Vulgate), about 1275–1300, in a later tooled leather binding. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).
The song comes from the busiest stretch of a short career. Born in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, in 1838, Bliss left home young to work on farms and in lumber camps, and later traveled as a music teacher before settling in Chicago, where George F. Root hired him to run musical institutes and write Sunday school songs.[1] By about 1871 he was superintendent of the Sunday schools at Chicago's First Congregational Church, and in 1874, the year of this hymn, he began working alongside the evangelist D. W. Whittle.[1] With Ira D. Sankey he compiled the popular Gospel Hymns series of collections, but he and his wife were killed in a train wreck and fire at Ashtabula, Ohio, in late December 1876.[1]
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