O Love That Will Not Let Me Go

SONG WRITER: George Matheson                    

MUSIC WRITER: Albert Peace                    

WHEN WRITTEN: June 6, 1882

HYMN HISTORY: George Matheson suffered poor eyesight from birth, and at age 15 learned that he was going blind.  Not one to be easily discouraged, he enrolled in the University of Glasgow and graduated at age 19.  He then began theological studies, and it was while pursuing those that he began totally blind.

Matheson's three sisters rose to the occasion and tutored him through his studies –– even going so far as to learn Hebrew, Greek, and Latin to be able to help their brother.  With their help he was able to complete his studies.  After graduation, he answered a call to serve as pastor of a church in Innellan, Argylshire, Scotland.  He had a successful ministry there, and was later called to serve as pastor of the much larger (2000 member) St. Bernard's Church in Edinburgh.  On the day that one of his sisters was married, Matheson wrote this hymn.  He recorded this account of that experience in his journal:

"My hymn was composed in the manse of Inellan on the evening of June 6, 1882.  I was at that time alone.  It was the day of my sister's marriage, and the rest of my family were staying overnight in Glasgow.  Something had happened to me which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering.  The hymn was the fruit of that suffering.  It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life.  I had the impression of having it dictated to me by some inward voice than of working it out myself.  I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction.  I have no natural gift of rhythm.  All the other verses I have written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high.  I have never been able to gain once more the same fervor in verse."

Matheson obviously didn't intend to tell us what caused his "most severe mental suffering," but people who know his background strongly suspect that it had to do with a heartbreaking experience several years earlier.  His fiancee had broken her engagement to him, telling him that she couldn't see herself going through life married to a blind man.  Matheson never married, and it seems likely that his sister's wedding brought to memory the woman that he had loved and the wedding that he had never enjoyed.

At any rate, Matheson's "severe mental suffering" inspired him to write this hymn, "O Love that Wilt Not Let Me Go."  The hymn celebrates the constancy of God's love –– "love that wilt not let me go" –– "light that follow'st all my way" –– "joy that seekest me through pain."  It concludes by celebrating "Life that shall endless be."

Matheson suffered two severe blows that could have stopped him –– the loss of his eyesight and the loss of his beloved.  In both cases, he made the best of a bad situation –– and we are all the richer for it.  As this hymn reveals, it was his faith in God that kept him going through the adversities that he suffered.  He believed that God's love would not let him go –– and that God's light would follow him all his way –– and that God's joy would seek him through his pain –– and that faith made all the difference.

BIBLE VERSE:  Romans 8:38-39 – “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

HYMN LYRICS:

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.