The History Of The Hymn Jesus My Strength My Hope

On October 9, 1852, Tho­mas Ro­bin­son Al­lan, who af­ter­wards found­ed the Al­lan Library, tracked down his direction to the Wes­ley­an Church in Wind­sor Road, Brigh­ton, where the Fire up. Pe­ter Coo­per taught from the pray­er of Ja­bez (I Chron. iv. 10), and read the principal section of this song.

‘Is it true or not that i was lead to this spot to-night to re­ceive an an­swer to a pe­ti­tion which had for some time involved pray­er, and which I par­ti­cu­lar­ly and ear­nest­ly plead­ed this morn­ing?

I be­lieve it was so; however it was ac­com­pan­ied by a sort, up­braid­ing look from my ador­a­ble Mas­ter, when the preach­er said, Pe­rhaps you en­gaged in the bus­i­ness with­out con­sult­ing God by any means.

However the mat­ter was not in that frame of mind on en­ter­ing the spot, at this point it came strong­ly in­to my brain at the con­clu­sion of the ser­vice, that the Ruler had gra­cious­ly con­des­cend­ed to give me a tok­en that He had heard my pray­er. Also, whe­ther the an­swer takes ef­fect along these lines or that, I pass on to His wis­dom and His affection.’