Christ for the world we sing

Christ for the world we sing. Samuel Wolcott* (1813-1886). Written during Wolcott’s time as a Congregationalist minister at Cleveland, Ohio. There are two accounts of its composition, both agreeing that it was inspired by a meeting of the Young Men’s Christian Associations of Ohio in that city, though differing in date. According to Samuel Willoughby Duffield (1885, p. 85), Wolcott himself remembered that the motto of the Associations, ‘Christ for the World, and the World for Christ’ was written up ‘in evergreen letters’ over the pulpit (woven with evergreen branches) at a meeting on 7 February 1869. He said that he thought of the hymn on the way home from the meeting, and wrote it down...