Philip Paul Bliss (July 9, 1838 – December 29, 1876) was an American composer of gospel songs, baritone-bass singer, and song leader who collaborated with Daniel W. Whittle in evangelistic ministry; he was also a good friend of Dwight L. Moody. Some of his better-known songs are "Hold the Fort" (1870), "Almost Persuaded" (1871); "Let the Lower Lights Be Burning" (1871); "Hallelujah, What a Saviour!" (1875); "Wonderful Words of Life" (1875), and "I Will Sing of My Redeemer" (1876); he also wrote the melody for Horatio Spafford's "It Is Well with My Soul" (1876).
With a surname derived from a Middle English word meaning "joy" or "gladness, those who knew him well, like George F. Root, a close friend and one-time employer, would say of him, "His smile went into his religion and his religion into his smile", while Arthur T. Pierson, successor to Charles H. Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle of London, testified that "he was well named 'Bliss'. What a happy man he was! What a ray of sunshine, what a spring of joy!"
Family heritage Found among his papers after his death, on a page marked "P. P. Bliss, 1861", was his family's genealogy, with some very interesting religious and historical connections. Thomas Bliss Sr., his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, was a hard-working, wealthy landowner from the village of Belstone in the West Devon District of England; because of his Puritan convictions, all of his real estate holdings were confiscated and he was thrown in jail during the persecution of Dissenters (or Noncomformists) under the auspices of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. His health and wealth ruined, he died there two years later in 1635.
The same year that Thomas Sr., died, his widow and two of their sons, George and Thomas Jr., set sail from Wales for the New World in search of religious freedom. Thomas Jr., settled down in Connecticut, where he was the first person to introduce potatoes to the region; George chose Rhode Island. George's son, John, then moved to Connecticut, where he met and married Damaris Arnold, the daughter of the then-governor of Rhode Island, Benedict Arnold I, the great-grandfather of the notorious traitor. Next in line was Josiah Bliss, who fathered a son, William, who in turn was the father of Philip's grandfather, John (b. 1760); a shoemaker by trade, he married a woman from Massachusetts named Reliance Babcock, then moved his family to Greenfield in Saratoga County, New York, where he bought a 100-acre farm. As to John's religious character, he walked from his home in Greenfield to Newport, Rhode Island, a distance of 200 miles, just to be baptized (no doubt, in a cold, icy creek!); later, he became a Seventh Day Baptist minister.
Philip's grandmother gave birth to sixteen children, twelve of whom were boys, but only two of them survived into adulthood, one of whom was one of a set of twins, Isaac, who was born on April 29, 1797. He married Lydia Doolittle on June 17, 1831, and together they had five children: Phebe, Reliance (named after her paternal grandmother), Philip, Elizabeth, and James. Reliance died when she was three years old, while James only lived to be seven months old and was buried next to his sister.
The only book that Isaac Bliss ever read was the Bible. Philip said of his father, “He was a diligent reader of the Bible, and had the most implicit faith in its teachings, and a deep reverence for its commands.” He also admired his father's prayer life as “devout, tender, and child-like, repeating over and over again, year after year, about the same words, until we all knew them by heart; his prayers were very real, very holy to me in my childhood". Philip described his father as living “in continual communion with his Savior; always happy, always trusting, always singing.” As to the latter, Philip's mother, Lydia, used to lovingly poke fun of her husband, because all the hymns that he sang began with the word “come”; in fact, two of his favorites were “Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy” and “Come, We That Love the Lord”. In honor of his godly upbringing, Philip wrote a song called "My Grandfather's Bible" (which can be sung to FRIEND, the melody for "I've Found a Friend", written by George C. Stebbins), the first verse of which went like this:The Sabbath day - sweet day of rest - was drawing to a close;
The summer day went murm'ring by, to lull me to repose:
I took my father's Bible down - his father's gift to him -
A treasure rare, beyond compare, though soiled the page and dim.
Early life
Philip P. Bliss was born in Huston Township, near Penfield in the northwestern corner of Clearfield County, almost at the heart of the state of Pennsylvania. There is a historical marker on Pennsylvania Route 255, 2.2 miles northeast of Pennfield in the village of Hollywood, indicating where his birthplace may have once been. It reads, “Philip P. Bliss: The great singing evangelist and gospel song writer was born July 9, 1838, in a log house which stood a little distance from here. He lived and worked on the farm and in nearby lumber camps until the age of 16.” As Philip tells the story, his original first name was spelled with two “P”s at the end; he then took the final “P” and made it his middle initial. Since he referred to himself as “Sr.” and his oldest son, who was known as “Paul”, as “Jr.”, it stands to reason that his middle initial stood for “Paul”.Philip P. Bliss (1838-1876): Gospel Hymn Composer and Compiler. Ed. D. dissertation by Bob J. Neil (1977). Submitted to the faculty of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Education in the Division of Church Music Ministries
Philip's family moved frequently in his younger years: after five years in Clearfield County, they moved to Kinsman, Ohio, just across that state line (Kinsman is where his good friend James McGranahan eventually retired and was buried), then returned to Pennsylvania, where they lived in Espyville (Crawford County) for a year, before eventually settling down in Tioga County in the north-central part of the state. Because his family moved so often and lived where there were very few people, Philip had little in the way of formal schooling, getting much of what he learned from his father's singing, praying, and reading of the Scriptures, along with his mother's daily lessons.
From an early age, Philip had a keen interest in music; at first, he would sit and listen to his father sing, eventually joining in along with him as he got older. Picking up a tune came easy for him; he could whistle it or play it on a crude musical instrument that he himself made. But it was when he was ten years old, while on an errand in their village, that he first heard a piano being played; he described it as "sweeter than anything (he) had ever before listened to". Irresistibly drawn to the music that was coming from the open door of a home, he walked into the entrance of the parlor in his bare feet and stood listening, entranced, unnoticed at first by the young lady who was playing. When she stopped, he exclaimed with great fervor, "O lady, play some more!" Startled, she looked around and, unsympathetic to his appreciation of her playing, ordered, "Get out of here with your big feet!" Leaving crushed in spirit, he said afterwards that "the memory of (those) harmonies . . . seemed to (me) like heaven."
At the age of eleven, Philip left home to go to work on a farm; so, began a time in his life (until he was 16) that he worked at various jobs during the warmer months, while going to school in the colder months to get an education. Besides helping out on a farm, he worked at a lumber camp on the Pine Creek (home of the Pennsylvania "Grand Canyon"), served as an assistant cook, cut logs, and spent some time in a sawmill.
During that time, when Philip was twelve years old, the preaching of a local Baptist pastor led to a revival that broke out among the students at the school which he attended near the village of Elk Run; it was then and there that he first made a public profession of faith in Christ. Not long afterwards, he was baptized by immersion in a creek near his home; later, at the age of 17, he joined the Baptist Church of Cherry Flats in Tioga County. While he couldn't point to a particular time and place when he was converted, he also testified that he "couldn't remember a moment when he didn't love Jesus, wasn't sorry for his sin, or didn't pray." In a letter at that time to one of his sisters, he wrote, "My mind is established, with a full purpose of heart, to serve God, to live acceptably, and be prepared to meet my Judge in peace."
Education As Philip entered his later teen years, he continued his familiar pattern of attending school in the winter and working on a farm in the summer. But he soon realized that he did not just want to go to school to learn for himself, but to help others learn by teaching them. His first job as a teacher was at a school in Hartsville, New York, but the challenges of teaching helped him to see his need for further education. While he had already been awarded a Provisional Teacher's Certificate by the Superintendent of Bradford County on June 10, 1857, that fall he enrolled in the Susquehanna Collegiate Institute (SCI) of Towanda, Pennsylvania. There, for a semester, he took courses in algebra, grammar, physiology, and Latin, along with some vocal instruction. He was not ashamed to admit that, to pay his way through school, he became “a kind of chore-boy”, sawing wood, fetching water, and sweeping rooms; as he insisted, he was determined to “earn every penny I possibly can honorably.” He would have finished up his education at SCI if it were not for a visit from the school president of the Rome (PA) Township, who came to the Institute looking for someone to replace their teacher who was unable to finish out the term because of poor health.
While at SCI, Philip had attended his first musical convention in nearby Rome. There he met “Professor” J. G. Towner, who operated a local singing school at nearby Towner Hill, recognized his talent, and gave him his first formal voice instruction. He was also introduced to William B. Bradbury, who had come to the convention at the invitation of "Professor" Towner. At the time, Bradbury had just begun writing sacred music for children and was probably the first person Philip had ever met who made a career of Christian music. Encouraged by Bradbury to become a music teacher, a lasting friendship began between the two men. When the older man died of tuberculosis at age 51 a decade later, Philip wrote a song, "We Love Him," in his honor:
"We love him, though his friendly hand has never clasped our own;
His gentle voice and loving smile we never yet have known.
We love the sweet, the blessed songs that he to us has giv’n;
We know he loved us here on earth; we love him though in heaven."
Early career and marriage In the year Philip began teaching at the Rome Academy, he met a farmer and Christian named O. F. Young; he, his wife, and his mother-in-law "Grandma Allen", along with their five children, were a singing family. Since Mr. Young was on the school board, he invited Philip to make their house his home, and it wasn't long before Philip was considered part of the family. He even sent for his younger sister, Elizabeth, to join him for the winter and to attend the school where he taught.