Phillip Bliss

Phillip Bliss was born to humble beginnings in a log cabin in rural Pennsylvania.  Uneducated for the first ten years of his life the bible was his only textbook and his parents his only teachers.  Phillip’s parents loved Jesus and his father led the family in daily prayer and song.  So, from a very early age, Bliss developed a great passion for both Jesus and music that would direct the rest of his life.

Phillip left home at age eleven to make his living as a logger.  He spent the next five years in various lumber camps and sawmills.  Every spare moment he had between jobs was dedicated to attending school and studying music.  Despite the rough environment of the logging camps Phillip walked closely with Jesus and got involved in ministry through Methodist revival services.

At age seventeen Bliss took the final steps to obtain his teaching credentials and became the schoolmaster of Hartsville, New York.  Through the input of many friends and mentors he transitioned to a music teacher position back in Pennsylvania.  It was there he met Lucy Young and fell in love.  The two were married just before Phillip’s twenty-first birthday in 1859.  He soon set out, with Lucy at his side, as an iterant music teacher.  Through a generous family gift Phillip received a more formal music education through the Academy of Music in New York.  With his studies completed he became the musical authority of the whole region.

In 1864, at twenty-six years old, Phillip moved to Chicago where he gained even wider recognition as a teacher, singer and composer.  For the next 8 years, with Lucy at his side, he tirelessly conducted singing schools, conventions and concerts.  Through his teach endeavors as well as his published songs, both sacred and secular, Bliss was financially successful and at the top of his game.

During this season of life Bliss developed a friendship with the great evangelist preacher DL Moody and his associate Daniel Whittle.  Both Moody and Whittle recognized his tremendous gifts and challenged him to leave his business and come work in their ministry.  After a number of years Phillip decided to join Whittle for an evangelistic crusade in Illinois.  He got up and sang one of his original songs “Almost Persuaded”.  As he sang, numerous people felt conviction of sin and surrendered their lives to Jesus.  Despite his success financially as well as an educator and songwriter Bliss surrendered himself to God’s call on his life.  In humility, he walked away from his business and began full time work as an evangelist with Whittle and Moody.  He traveled all over the country for the next 2 years seeing countless people come to salvation in Jesus.  Moody said of Bliss, “In my estimate, he was the most highly honored of God of any man of his time as a writer and singer of gospel songs, and with all his gifts he was the most humble man I ever knew.  I loved him as a brother.”

In 1876, Bliss conducted a service of eight hundred inmates of Michigan State Prison and sang one of his last hymns, “Man of Sorrows”.  As he sang the refrain, “Halleluiah, what a Savior,” many of the prisoners openly wept and gave their lives to Jesus.  No one knew that this would be the last public performance of his life.

Phillip and Lucy spent Christmas back home in Pennsylvania with family and their 2 young sons.  December 29th, 1876 the Blisses kissed their kids goodbye and boarded a train headed back home to Chicago. Philip was to lead music for a new year’s service for Moody.  It was snowing heavily when they came to a bridge in Ohio.  The first car of the train made it across but the bridge collapsed all the passenger cars plummeted to the bottom of the canyon and burst into flame.  Initially Phillip survived the fall and was thrown free of the twisted wreckage of the train.  However, as he came to his senses he rushed back into the burning train in an attempt to save his wife.  They both died in the fire.

 Phillip Bliss stands as an example of Christ like humility.  He did not look only to his own interests of business and finance but stepped out in faith and service as a minister of the gospel.  Like Jesus he considered others more significant than himself and humbled himself even to the point of death.  Phillip died to save his wife just as Jesus died to save mankind.  Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.”  And we respond with the words of Bliss’ great hymn, “Halleluiah, what a Savior.”