Shall we gather at the river

Shall we gather at the river. Robert Lowry* (1826-1899). Written in July 1864 in Brooklyn, New York, during Lowry’s time as pastor of Hanson Place Baptist Church. He said that he was suffering from exhaustion on a day of excessive heat and was lying down when the hymn came to him. He had noticed that much was said about the ‘river of death’, but much less about ‘a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb’ (Revelation 22: 1). On this occasion the hymn formed itself in his mind as question and answer: ‘shall we gather’ for the stanzas and ‘yes we’ll gather’ for the refrain. The words and music first appeared in Happy Voices (New York,...