Hymn of the Week: January 25, 2021

Hymn of the Week: There Is a Place of Quiet Rest  (Near to the Heart of God)
Hymn 824 in Glory to God

Cleland Boyd McAfee 1901

There Is a Place of Quiet Rest 

There is a place of quiet rest,
near to the heart of God,
a place where sin cannot molest,
near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,
sent from the heart of God,
hold us, who wait before thee,
near to the heart of God.

There is a place of comfort sweet,
near to the heart of God,
a place where we our Savior meet,
near to the heart of God. 

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,
sent from the heart of God,
hold us, who wait before thee,
near to the heart of God.

There is a place of full release,
near to the heart of God,
a place where all is joy and peace,
near to the heart of God. 

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,
sent from the heart of God,
hold us, who wait before thee,
near to the heart of God.

I came upon this song of our faith in our hymnal, and on reading more about it was struck by how similar to the lives we are living in now, the story of the creation of this hymn is.

Cleland Boyd McAfee (September 25, 1866 – February 4, 1944) was an American theologian, Presbyterian minister, and hymn writer, best known for penning the gospel hymn, "Near to the Heart of God," and its tune called "McAfee". He wrote the song after the concurrent deaths of two of his young nieces, caused by diphtheria. McAfee’s daughter tells of the composition of this hymn in her own words:

My father’s father, John A McAfee, was one of the founders and the first president of Park College in Missouri. In the last years of the past century, his five sons (Lowell, Howard, Lapsley, Cleland, Ernest) and his only daughter (Helen) were all living in Parkville, serving the college. My father was the college preacher and director of the choir, and it was his custom, when communion services came, to write the words and music of a response which his choir could sing and which would fit into the theme of his sermon.

One terrible week, just before the communion Sunday, the two little daughters of my Uncle Howard and Aunt Lucy McAfee died of diphtheria within 24 hours of each other. The college family and town were stricken with grief. My father often told us how he sat long and late thinking of what could be said in word and song on the coming Sunday….

So he wrote (“Near to the Heart of God”). The choir learned it at the regular Saturday evening rehearsal, and afterward, they went to the Hoard McAfee’s home and sang it as they stood under the sky outside the darkened, quarantined house. It was sung again on Sunday morning

at the communion service. (Then Sings My Soul 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories Robert J. Morgan page 246).

McAfee was born in Ashley Missouri, in 1866, as one of five children. His father, John A. McAfee, was the founder of Park College in Parkville, Missouri. The younger McAfee graduated from Park College in 1884 and later graduated from Union Theological Seminary in New York. McAfee went on to serve as a professor of philosophy, choir director, pastor, and dean of Park College until 1901 when he left to minister at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. McAfee moved from First Presbyterian in 1904, to pastor the Lafayette Avenue Church of Brooklyn, in Brooklyn, New York. McAfee also taught systematic theology at McCormick Theological Seminary, from 1912 to 1930.

Enjoy this stirring rendition of this timeless hymn found on youtube.