This week in Christian history: Constantine’s vision, Martin Luther’s German Mass
Edward Mote baptized – Nov. 1, 1815
This week marks the anniversary of when Edward Mote, an English pastor who wrote the famous hymn “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less,” was baptized at the age of 18.
A native of London, England, Mote was baptized by the Rev. John Bayley, eventually becoming a pastor himself in 1852 at a Baptist church in Horsham, Sussex.
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Mote is best known for his hymn “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less,” which included the choral refrain “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
The History of Hymns referred to Mote as part of “the rare category of hymn writers who grew up without religious training and whose parents were pub owners.”
“American Methodist hymnologist and hymnal editor Robert Guy McCutchan notes that the hymn was probably written in 1834 and originally began, ‘Nor earth, nor hell, my soul can move.’ The original title was ‘Jesus, my All in All,’” explained History of Hymns.
“The ‘foot-stomping’ tune was composed by American gospel song composer, William Bradbury (1816-1868), a fellow Baptist, for Mote’s text in 1863 and appeared during the American Civil War in Bradbury’s Devotional Hymn and Tune Book (1864).”
