My body, soul and spirit

My body, soul and spirit. Mary Dagworthy James* (1810-1883). Written at the Round Lake Camp Meeting, New York, in 1869, and published in Notes of Joy for the Sabbath School, the Social Meeting and the Hour of Prayer, edited by Phoebe Palmer Knapp* (New York, 1869). Knapp wrote a tune for it, MY ALL IS ON THE ALTAR. The hymn is notable for its refrain, containing the image of the purifying fire: My all is on the altar, I’m waiting for the fire; Waiting, waiting, waiting, I’m waiting for the fire. Like James’s ‘In the rifted rock I'm resting’*, this hymn is a simplification of an earlier writer, in this case Charles Wesley* (‘O thou who camest from above’*, or ‘Sing to the great Jehovah's...