JC Penney and the Golden Rule

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This is the day that … James Cash Penney was born near Hamilton, Missouri in 1875 in Missouri, USA, son of a Primitive Baptist preacher.

At age 8 he was buying his own clothes and earning his own money for his needs. He was taught scrupulous honesty by his minister father.

At the age of 27 (1902) he had opened his first store, the Golden Rule Store, in Wyoming. And it was so named because he was committed to building his business “on bedrock Christian ethics”.

And build he did. Five years later he owned three stores, then, by 1912, he had 34 stores with sales of over $2 million. In 1913 he changed the store name to J.C. Penney Co.

“From 1917 to 1929 the business exploded, growing to nearly 1400 stores nationwide” (More Than Conquerors, Moody Press, page 342).

In the stock market crash of 1929 he lost $40 million. There followed a time of failed health and convalescence in a sanatorium. Here he experienced a “spiritual renewal” – at the age of 56. He heard someone playing hymns on the organ, so he walked in there, bowed down and said, ‘Lord, I’m giving my life to You’. Once more began his climb up the business ladder. The J.C. Penney Company began to flourish once more.

Penney was a man of strict principal, who refused all drink and tobacco and “For many years anyone who used tobacco and liquor was discharged” (page 342). He became convinced (internally “convicted”) that, even in debt and poverty, he should tithe to God. By 1990 sales topped $18 million.

When he died at the age of 95 the New York Times commented that Penney’s adherence to the Golden Rule had “aroused scepticism in a mercenary age” … but the success of his business “put the lie to the cynics”. He left a 1,660-store empire that he built without compromising the stiff principles he had absorbed from three generations of Baptist preacher ancestors.

“I believe in adherence to the Golden Rule, faith in God and the country,” he often said. “I would rather be known as a Christian than a merchant.”

This post is based on the work of my late friend Donald Prout whose love for books and Christian history led him to collate a daily Christian calendar. I continue to work with Don’s wife, Barbara, to share his life work with the world. I have updated some of these historical posts and will hopefully draw from Don’s huge files of clippings to continue this series beyond Don’s original work. More of Don’s work can be found at www.donaldprout.com.

John Marriott Gives Us Hymns

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This is the day that … John Marriott was born near Lutterworth, England, in 1780.

Marriott apparently displayed both a strong academic bent and an interest in music from his youth.

He was educated at Oxford and was the second student to attain first class honours there. He was then ordained to the Anglican ministry, and became chaplain to a Scottish duke. During this time he became a close friend of Sir Walter Scott.

Scott honoured Marriott’s love of music and interest in the music of the Scottish Border region, by the following reference in his work, “Marmion”:
Marriott, thy harp, on Isis strung,
To many a Border tune has rung.

In 1808 he became minister in the parish of Warwickshire, but his wife’s illness made it necessary to move to Devon.

“He wrote a number of hymns but modesty prevented his permitting publication of them during his lifetime …” (Companion to the Baptist Hymnal, page 367).

His best known hymn is categorised as a Missionary Hymn and was written in 1813 and published 42 years after his death … (this is an updated version of the hymn)

Thou, Whose almighty word
Chaos and darkness heard,
And took their flight,
Hear us, we humbly pray,
And, where the gospel day
Sheds not its glorious ray,
Let there be light!

Savior, you came to give
Those who in darkness live
Healing and sight;
Help those who seek to find,
Heal those whose hearts are blind,
And in each humble mind
Let there be light!

Marriott originally set the hymn to the English National Anthem, God Save the King, but it was later given other tunes.

John Marriott died on 31 March, 1825.

This post is based on the work of my late friend Donald Prout whose love for books and Christian history led him to collate a daily Christian calendar. I continue to work with Don’s wife, Barbara, to share his life work with the world. I have updated some of these historical posts and will hopefully draw from Don’s huge files of clippings to continue this series beyond Don’s original work. More of Don’s work can be found at www.donaldprout.com.

Augustus Montague Toplady Contends with Wesley

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This is the day that … Augustus Montague Toplady died, in 1778.

Augustus Toplady was born in Surrey, England, in 1740, and his father was killed in battle at the Siege of Carthagena when Augustus was only a few months old. His biographer describes the boy as a “sickly, neurotic, and precociously religious lad” (The Gospel in Hymns, A. Bailey, page 117).

In his diary he writes, “I am now arrived at the age of 11 years. I praise God I can remember no dreadful crime, and not to me but the Lord be the glory, Amen.” He also wrote that “Aunt Betsy is so fractious … and insolent … she is unfit for human society.”

At the age of 12 he began preaching, at 14 he was writing hymns. At the age of 16, now living in Ireland, he heard a Methodist lay preacher, James Morris – and was converted. He later wrote: “Strange that I, who had so long sat under the means of grace in England, should be brought near to God in an obscure part of Ireland, amidst a handful of people met together in a barn, by the ministry of one who could hardly spell his name.”

He later decided that Calvinism was the Scriptural teaching and joined the Anglican Church. He became a fighting Calvinist – his violent antagonistic clashes with John Wesley make sorry reading – “he sometimes indulged in the severe and scurrilous language that was tolerated in controversy in those times,” writes Elsie Houghton. Toplady called Wesley a “liar and forgerer … the most rancorous hater of the gospel system that ever appeared in this island”. He accused Wesley of “Satanic shamelessness”.

In 1762 Toplady was ordained in the Church of England, where he was to become an effective witness for his Lord. “Immense crowds” we are told, flocked to hear him preach.

His ministry was cut short by consumption (tuberculosis), railing on Wesley to the last, but around the world thousands of believers still sing his great hymn:
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure –
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

The popular account of its creation is that Toplady was caught in a sudden storm on a path between two cliffs. He quickly found shelter in a cave, leading him to consider the shelter afforded believers through faith in Christ. There was no paper on which to write, but he found a playing card, considered a devil’s tool, on the floor of the cave. On that he penned the start of his great hymn.

This post is based on the work of my late friend Donald Prout whose love for books and Christian history led him to collate a daily Christian calendar. I continue to work with Don’s wife, Barbara, to share his life work with the world. I have updated some of these historical posts and will hopefully draw from Don’s huge files of clippings to continue this series beyond Don’s original work. More of Don’s work can be found at www.donaldprout.com.

Mary Artemisia Lathbury’s Ministry with Pen

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This is the day that … Mary Artemisia Lathbury was born in Ontario County, New York State, in 1841.

Her father was a Methodist minister … and her two brothers would also become Methodist ministers later in life. However pulpit ministry was not available to women, so Mary found her own way to touch lives.

Despite poor eyesight, Mary Lathbury became a professional artist, and even an art teacher at an academy in Vermont. She edited the Methodist Sunday-School Union magazine. She was a pioneer in the field of book and magazine illustration by women.

One day she heard a voice she believed was God, saying: “Remember, my child, that you have a gift of weaving fancies into verse and a gift with the pencil of producing visions that come to your heart; consecrate these to Me as thoroughly as you do your inmost spirit.”

She was one of the founders of the Chautauqua Movement, aimed to promote spiritual and cultural values to Methodists. During the summer months 50,000 people would attend the great convention meetings at this camp site at Lake Chautauqua (New York State).

In 1877 a Methodist bishop suggested that it would be good if the Chautauqua Movement had its “own vesper hymn”. As the sun set across the lake that night, Mary Lathbury penned the now well-known hymn, “Day is dying in the west, Heaven is touching Earth with rest…” The melody, called “Chautauqua” in some books, and “Evening Praise” in others, was composed by the camp Music Director, William Fiske Sherman. Note her words of praise to God in the chorus…
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts!
Heaven and earth are full of Thee!
Heaven and earth are praising Thee,
Our Lord most high!

Seven years later, at the same camp-site, Mary Lathbury again set pen to paper, this time to write a special study song for those who attended the Chautauqua meetings, “Break Thou the Bread of Life, dear Lord, to me…” Again it was set to music by William Sherman.

Thus she became known as the poet laureate of Chautauqua.

She remained single, dedicating her work, “to Him who is the best friend that woman ever knew”. She also founded the “Look Up Legion”, based on four rules promoted in Edward Everett Hale’s “Ten Times One is Ten”. These are:

Look up, and not down;
Look forward, and not back;
Look out, and not in,
And lend a hand.

Mary Lathbury died on 20 October, 1913, in New Jersey.

This post is based on the work of my late friend Donald Prout whose love for books and Christian history led him to collate a daily Christian calendar. I continue to work with Don’s wife, Barbara, to share his life work with the world. I have updated some of these historical posts and will hopefully draw from Don’s huge files of clippings to continue this series beyond Don’s original work. More of Don’s work can be found at www.donaldprout.com.

Ira D Sankey – hymn writer

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This is the day that … a weekly newspaper, The Christian Age, dated 13 May, 1874, printed a poem, which fell into the hands of Mr Ira D. Sankey.

With his friend, D.L. Moody, beside him, the two American evangelists sat in a railway carriage travelling towards Edinburgh. Moody had just completed the Glasgow campaign.

In that newspaper Sankey found a poem and read it to Moody, “only to discover that he had not heard a word, so absorbed was he in a letter.” However, Sankey kept the poem – “I cut it out and placed it in my musical scrap-book.”

At the second meeting of the Edinburgh campaign Moody preached on “The Good Shepherd”, and whilst the chairman (Dr Bonar) made some closing remarks, Moody asked Sankey to sing something appropriate to close the meeting. Sankey tells us in his autobiography that singing the 23rd Psalm crossed his mind, but … let Sankey tell the story … “At that moment I seemed to hear a voice saying: ‘Sing the hymn you found on the train.’ But I thought this impossible, as no music had ever been written for it! Nevertheless the inner conviction persisted.

“Placing the little newspaper slip on the organ in front of me, I lifted my heart in prayer, asking God to help me … I struck the chord of A flat and began to sing. Note by note the tune was given which has not been changed from that day to this” (pages 306-307). After the service Moody asked his friend, “… where did you get that hymn?” to which Sankey replied: “Mr Moody, that’s the hymn I read to you yesterday on the train, which you did not even hear…”

The hymn was written by Elizabeth Clephane (who also penned Beneath the Cross of Jesus).

And the hymn? …
There were ninety and nine that safely lay
in the shelter of the fold,
But one was out on the hills away,
Far off from the gates of gold.
Away on the mountains wild and bare,
Away from the tender Shepherd’s care.

But none of the ransomed ever knew
how deep were the waters crossed;
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through
’ere He found His sheep that was lost.
Out in the desert He heard its cry –
Sick and helpless, and ready to die.
(From My Life Story and the Story of the Gospel Hymns, by I.D. Sankey, page 304).