It Is Well with My Soul

"It Is Well with My Soul" was written by Horatio Gates Spafford in 1873 under some of the most heartbreaking circumstances in hymn history. Spafford was a successful Chicago lawyer and Presbyterian elder who had already lost his young son to scarlet fever and much of his real estate holdings in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In November 1873, he sent his wife and four daughters ahead on the SS Ville du Havre to Europe, planning to follow later. The ship was struck by an iron sailing vessel in the mid-Atlantic and sank within twelve minutes — all four of Spafford's daughters drowned. His wife Anna survived and sent him the now-famous telegram: "Saved alone." Spafford sailed to meet her, and as his ship passed near the spot where his daughters had perished, he wrote the words "When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll — whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul." His friend Philip Bliss composed the powerful tune "Ville du Havre" in honor of the tragedy. The hymn stands as one of the most profound testimonies to faith in the face of unimaginable loss.