WONDERFUL WORDS OF LIFE

Philip Paul Bliss was born in July 1838.  They were hard times.  He had little formal education and was taught from the Bible of and by his Mother. 

At age 10, while selling vegetables to help support the family, Bliss first heard a piano. He had always loved music, and his parents had allowed him to develop his passion for singing.  Eventually in life, he became a bass-baritone Gospel singer. 

Bliss left home at the age of 11 to make his own living…working in timber camps and sawmills.  While working, he irregularly attended school to further his education.  By age 17, he had finished his requirements to teach and became a schoolmaster and later an itinerant music teacher.

Philip’s compositions include “I will Sing of My Redeemer”, “Let the Lower Lights be Burning,” “Hallelujah, What a Savoiur” and the music for Horatio Spafford’s Hymn, “It is Well with My Soul.”  In 1875, he composed his hymn, WONDERFUL WORDS OF LIFE.

The following year, in 1876, Philip and his wife, Lucy, were travelling on the Pacific Express when the bridge the train was on collapsed underneath, sending the cars crumbling to the Ashtabula River ravine below.  They were both killed.  There is no doubt that his Mother’s Bible from which he had received his first biblical training were his WONDERFUL WORDS OF LIFE!