A hymn and its story
It Is Well With My Soul
Words by Horatio G. Spafford, 1873 · music by Philip P. Bliss
A father who had lost everything wrote 'It is well with my soul' while sailing over the very sea that took his four daughters, and the Church has grieved and hoped in his words ever since.
The story behind it
In 1873 Horatio Spafford, a Chicago lawyer who had already lost much of his fortune in the Great Fire and buried a young son, sent his wife Anna and their four daughters ahead to Europe by ship while business kept him behind. On the way across the Atlantic the SS Ville du Havre was struck by another vessel and sank in minutes. All four daughters, Annie, Maggie, Bessie, and Tanetta, drowned. Anna survived, and when she reached land she sent her husband a telegram of two words: 'Saved alone.'
Spafford boarded the next ship to join her. It is said that as they crossed the same waters where his daughters had died, the captain pointed out the place. Near there, in that grief, he wrote the words that begin, 'When peace, like a river, attendeth my way.' Not that all was well with his circumstances, everything had been taken, but that it was well with his soul, because his soul rested in God.
The words
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
The Scripture behind it
Why it still moves us
The hymn does not pretend the sea is calm. It names the sorrows that roll like billows and still says, it is well. That is why it has been sung at more funerals and in more sleepless nights than almost any other hymn: it gives words to a peace that does not depend on things going well. The ground of that peace is named plainly in the second verse, that Christ 'hath shed His own blood for my soul.' A grief this deep can rest only on a love that went that far.
Sing it, and mean it
A hymn is a prayer you can carry in your chest. The people who wrote these did not write from a stage; they wrote from shipwreck and sickbeds, from ordinary faithful mornings, and handed us words for the days we cannot find our own. You do not have to sing well. You only have to lift it, and mean it, to the One it is about.
Meet the One these hymns are aboutWorship in The Living BreadWhen you are carrying griefRead Psalm 23Jesus Christ is Lord.
Frequently asked questions
- Who wrote It Is Well With My Soul?
- Horatio G. Spafford, a Chicago lawyer, wrote the words in 1873 after his four daughters drowned when the SS Ville du Havre sank. Philip P. Bliss composed the tune, naming it 'Ville du Havre' after the lost ship.
- What is the story behind It Is Well With My Soul?
- Spafford's four daughters died at sea while crossing to Europe; his wife survived and telegraphed 'Saved alone.' Sailing to join her, near the place they drowned, he wrote 'It is well with my soul,' a confession of peace in God in the depth of loss.
- What does 'it is well with my soul' mean?
- It means that even when everything in life goes wrong, a soul anchored in God can be at peace, because that peace rests not on circumstances but on Christ, who 'hath shed His own blood for my soul.'