From age 11 to 16, his independent
existence was disciplined by work that yielded as much as $9 per month with
board. In 1850, during one of his periods of school attendance at Elk Run,
as a Baptist minister conducted a revival among the students, Bliss made
his profession of faith in Christ. A short time later, in a creek near his
home, he was baptized by a minister of the Christian church. In reflection
later in life, Bliss said his conversion was undramatic because he could
not remember a time when he did not love the Savior, feel remorse for his
sins, and pray.
Despite little schooling, in 1856, at age 18, in what can be seen in retrospect
as a tribute to his character and seriousness of purpose, he was enlisted
to teach school in Hartsville, New York. The following winter, 1857, in Towanda,
Pennsylvania, he met J.G. Towner, father of hymn writer D. B. Towner (composer
of the music to "Trust and Obey," "Grace Greater Than Our Sin," "At Calvary,"
etc.), and that winter the elder Towner's singing school afforded Bliss his
first systematic instruction in music. Also, that winter, probably under Towner's
influence, he attended his first musical convention in Rome, Pennsylvania,
an event that intensified his passion for music, nurtured his talent, and
quickened his musical instincts. Fortunately, W. B. Bradbury (compositions
include "Just As I Am," "The Solid Rock," "Sweet Hour of Prayer," "He Leadeth
Me," and "Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us") , the leading force in the convention,
was just beginning his ministry as a composer of sacred music. Bliss took
great inspiration from Bradbury, developed affection for him and great regard
for his musical ability. At Bradbury1s death later, Bliss wrote a song he
entitled, "We Love Him," which concludes:
We love the things that he has loved;
We love his earthly name;
And when we know his angel form,
We'll love him just the same.
We'll love each other better then,
We'll love 'Our Father' more;
We1ll roll a sweeter song of praise Along the 'Golden Shore.'
The winter of 1858 found Bliss teaching school in Almond, New York, and living
with the family of a school board member. June 1, 1859, Bliss married the
daughter of the school board member, Lucy J. Young, and they remained in the
household, with Bliss a farm hand, paid $13 per month, standard farm-hand
wages. Bliss marked that period as extremely important in his life. That winter,
he began teaching music, allowing him to learn how little music he knew, and
how passionately he wanted to know more. He was frustrated, then discouraged
and almost depressed at his earnest longing for music education, but without
money even to attend the Normal Academy of Music in Geneseo, New York, one
of the more extensive traveling music schools so common in that day, and the
great event among music lovers of the area.
He later told the story that one day when only his grandmother-in-law was
in the house, he threw himself on an old settee and, not having the $30 the
Music Academy required, "...cried for disappointment. I thought everything
had come to an end; that my life must be passed as a farm hand and country
schoolmaster, and all bright hopes for the future must be given up."
Grandma Allen, moved by his passion, told him she had been dropping coins
into an old sock for a number of years. Upon counting the coins, she found
more than the $30 required, and thus did a great service in underwriting Bliss1s
six-week course. It was a life-changing time for the young musician, allowing
him to meet music leaders of the area, to answer questions he had often posed
to himself, and to have realms of music unveiled. After the course, his father-in-law
bought him a $20 melodeon and, he noted in his diary, with the melodeon and
Old Fanny, his horse, he was in business as a professional music teacher.
Income from his music teaching bettered his standard of living and allowed
him freedom to attend the traveling schools again in 1861 and in 1863. Bliss
was chosen the most intelligent pupil by his teacher at the first school he
attended, and thereafter, was given the attention reserved for prize pupils,
including private voice lessons. His songwriting career was launched in 1864.
While living in Rome, doing farm work and teaching music, he wrote "Lora Vale,"
a sad, sentimental tune about the dying of a young girl, with the chorus:
Lora, Lora, still we love thee,
Tho' we see thy form no more,
And we know thou'll come to meet us
When we reach the mystic shore.
It happened that James McGranahan (composer of "There Shall Be Showers of
Blessing," "I Know Whom I Have Believed," "I Will Sing of My Redeemer"), himself
a songwriter and musical friend of Bliss, was that summer a clerk in the country
store and post office of Rome. (Later, after Bliss's death, McGranahan took
his place as musical associate to Major D. W. Whittle.) He reviewed the proofs
of Bliss's first composition and offered suggestions. Published in 1864 as
sheet music, the song was popular and sold several thousand copies. In 1863
or 1864, Bliss had met George Root ("Jesus Loves the Little Children," "The
Lord Is in His Holy Temple") who, with his brother, W. F. Root, had the firm
of Root & Cady of Chicago, that published Bliss's first song, operated a retail
music store, and conducted music schools throughout the midwest.
Drafted into the army in 1865, Bliss was discharged two weeks later, when
it became clear that the Civil War was ending. A gospel quartet, the "Yankee
Boys," of which Bliss was a member, received an offer from Root & Cady to
"come West" to Chicago to hold concerts on a salaried basis. The "Yankee Boys"
did not succeed, but the Root brothers retained Bliss, and for the next four
years with Root & Cady, and then on his own, his occupation was the holding
of music conventions, concerts and giving music lessons throughout the northern
midwest. Periodically, he helped write and assemble songs for Root & Cady
songbook publications.
Another pivotal year in Bliss1s life came in 1869 when he met D. L. Moody.
The evangelist was holding meetings in Wood's Museum theatre, Clark and Randolph
Streets in Chicago. Moody1s modus operandi was to preach in the open air from
the steps of the nearby courthouse for about thirty minutes and then to urge
the crowd into his meeting. Bliss and his wife, having heard of Moody but
never having heard him, out for a stroll before Sunday evening services, happened
onto the outdoor preaching. When Moody appealed to all to come inside, they
followed. The music director absent that evening, the singing was weak, and
from his place in the congregation, Bliss1s voice, strong and confident, attracted
Moody1s eye. When the service was over and Moody greeted folks at the door,
Bliss wrote later, "as I came to him he had my name and history in about two
minutes, and a promise that when I was in Chicago Sunday evenings, I would
come and help in the singing at the theater meetings."
Moody asked Root & Cady, "where in the world they had kept such a man for
four years that he hadn't become known in Chicago?"
In May of 1870, Bliss accompanied Moody1s friend Major D. W. Whittle to
a Sunday School Convention at Rockford, Illinois. There, Whittle, a major
conference speaker, related an incident from the Civil War to illustrate Christ1s
being the Christian1s commander, and of His coming to our relief. (Though
Whittle did not witness the events firsthand, he was on active duty with Major
General Oliver Howard in the vicinity of Atlanta, in October, 1864.) Just
before General Sherman began his march to the sea, about 20 miles north of
Marietta and Atlanta, Confederate troops cut Sherman's communications lines
along the railroad at Allatoona Pass, site of a huge fortification of Union
supplies and rations. It was extremely important that the earthworks commanding
the Pass and protecting the supplies be held. Confederate forces surrounded
the works and vigorous fighting ensued. The battle seemed lost and the cause
hopeless to the Union soldiers. But at that moment an officer caught sight
of a white signal flag, far away across the valley, 20 miles away, atop Kennesaw
Mountain. The signal was answered, and soon the message was waved from mountain
to mountain: "Hold the Fort; I am coming. W. T. Sherman." The song was instantly
born in the mind of Bliss:
Ho! My comrades, see the signal
Waving in the sky! Reinforcements now appearing Victory is nigh!
Chorus - 'Hold the fort, for I am coming,'
Jesus signals still.
Wave the answer back to heaven, -
'By thy grace, we will.'
Though, actually, the expression "Hold the Fort" was never used--three messages
were sent: one saying "hold out," another saying "hold fast," and another
saying "hold on"--Whittle's story was in essence correct. When he reached
Chicago, Bliss wrote out the music, and it was published first as sheet music,
bringing immense popularity to its author-composer, and making the expression,
"hold the fort" a widely-used colloquial expression. The militant tune lent
itself to all sorts of parodies, and it became widely used in the prohibition,
suffrage and labor movements, finding its way into labor songbooks as late
as the 1950s.
One of the parodies of the late 1800s was supposedly created by street people:
Hold the forks,
the knives are coming,
The plates are on the way,
Shout the chorus to your neighbor,
Sling the hash this way.
Following their initial meeting in 1869, Moody never ceased urging Bliss
to full-time service of the Lord. From Scotland in 1873-74, Moody sent letters:
"You have not faith. If you haven't faith of your own on this matter, start
out on my faith. Launch out into the deep." The ever wise counsel of Lucy
Bliss was: "I am willing that Mr. Bliss should do anything that we can be
sure is the Lord's will, and I can trust the Lord to provide for us, but I
don't want him to take such a step simply on Mr. Moody1s will." Almost as
an experiment or trial, in March, 1874, Bliss accompanied Whittle to Waukegan,
Illinois for a series of three meetings in the Congregational Church. Whittle
was a Wells Fargo cashier when he enlisted in the Union Army, was wounded
at Vicksburg in 1863 and, while recovering in Chicago from a Vicksburg wound,
he met and fastened a friendship with Moody.
Moody had been working on Whittle also to consider ending his high income
career as a business executive and to give himself full-time to preaching
and evangelism. In the Waukegan venture, both Bliss and Whittle wanted to
see if their efforts would be fruitful and if they could detect a sense of
calling to full-time evangelistic work. Wednesday afternoon, March 25, an
informal prayer gathering of leaders in the study turned out to be Bliss1s
consecration service, as he yielded to the notion that his life1s work should
be full-time in the Lord1s service. Whittle and Bliss returned to Chicago,
Bliss to resign his work and find someone to take over his conventions, and
Whittle to resign his position as Treasurer of the Elgin Watch Company. The
two, in close friendship and association with Moody, worked together until
Bliss1 death. The young musician and entrepreneur left behind a career with
its promise of generous income and rising reputation, that would earn as much
as $100 for a four-day convention engagement. And his Gospel Hymns and Sacred
Songs issued in 1875 in collaboration with Ira D. Sankey almost immediately
produced royalties of $60,000. Yet, they accepted not a cent. Whittle, who
himself later wrote the words to such great Gospel songs as "Showers of Blessing,"
and "I Know Whom I Have Believed," said Bliss never looked back.
P. P. Bliss was an attractive, winsome personality -- unpretentious, he liked
to call himself "country boy." Whittle described him: "Of large frame and
finely proportioned, a frank, open face, with fine, large, expressive eyes,
and always buoyant and cheerful, full of the kindliest feeling, wit and good
humor, with a devout Christian character, and of unsullied moral reputation...."
His employer and publisher, W. F. Root said of him, "It is rare indeed to
find both mind and body alike so strong, healthy and beautiful in one individual
as they were in him." He inherited from his father a happy, joyous disposition
which Root described thus: "His smile went into his religion and his religion
into his smile. His Lord was always welcome and apparently always there in
his open and loving heart."
Whittle knew him as "a very systematic and orderly man," "scrupulously neat
in person and apparel, and with the sensitiveness of a woman in matters of
taste." "A misspelled word in a letter, or the wrong pronunciation of a word
in an address, was to him like a note out of harmony in music."
The Blisses, together, provided music for the meetings with Whittle through
the latter half of 1874 and 1875. In their last year, 1876, they spent a week
with Moody at Northfield, Massachusetts, where the evangelist utilized their
talents in a whirlwind of eleven meetings. With Whittle, their meetings ranged
from Racine and Madison, Wisconsin, to St. Louis, to Mobile, Montgomery and
Selma, Alabama; Augusta, Georgia, Chicago, Kalamazoo and Jackson, Michigan,
finishing for the year 1876 in Peoria, December 14. They had talked of the
Blisses going to Britain with Moody and Sankey, where Bliss's "Jesus Loves
Even Me" had been instantly popular, "and more than any other hymn, it became
the key note of our meetings there," as Sankey wrote later.
The Blisses returned to be with family for the holidays in Rome, agreeing
to meet Whittle in Chicago, December 31, and to sing at Moody's Tabernacle.
In the old hometown, they spent "the happiest Christmas he had ever known"
with his mother, sister, and in-laws, and leaving their children in the care
of Mrs. Bliss's sister, the Blisses checked their luggage through to Chicago
and boarded the train at Waverly, New York. When an engine broke down, they
spent the night in a hotel, then continued their train journey in a blinding
snowstorm.
As the train puffed its way through the snowy silence, just after 7:00 the
evening of December 29, 1876, Bliss was observed in a parlor car with work
spread out in his lap. He had a few weeks earlier written verses he titled,
"I've Passed the Cross of Calvary," and over the holidays had come up with
a fitting tune that he sang to family and, intending to work on it aboard
the train, had placed it in his satchel for further attention. It may have
been the very piece that occupied him as the train plowed through the snow.
Crossing a trestle about 100 yards from the station at Ashtabula, Ohio, passengers
heard a terrible cracking sound. In just seconds, the trestle fractured and
the train plunged 70 feet into a watery gulf, the wooden cars captured by
flames fed by kerosene-heating stoves. The lead engine made it across, a second
engine two express cars and part of the baggage car rested with their weight
upon the bridge, and 87 souls fell into eternity in 11 railcars of raging
fire. Of 159 passengers, 92 were killed or died later of injuries sustained
in the crash, and 69 were injured. It was the worst railroad tragedy to that
point in American history.
Not a trace of P. P. or Lucy Bliss was ever found, not an artifact or possession.
Contemporaries noted it was as though he was taken up "in a chariot of fire."
At the request of Moody, the pennies of school children helped to erect a
monument in Rome, Bliss's hometown. So beloved was the young couple that special
memorial services were held in Chicago, in Rome, Pennsylvania, at South Bend,
St. Paul, Louisville, Nashville, Kalamazoo, and Peoria.
Twenty years later, in Ashtabula's Chestnut Grove Cemetery, a monument was
erected to all those 'unidentified" who perished in the Ashtabula Railroad
disaster. Among the names are "P. P. Bliss and wife."
Bliss' trunk had been checked through to Chicago, and in it, surviving its
author, was the last song he wrote, setting to music the words of Mary G.
Brainard, now so especially poignant:
"I know not what awaits me,
God kindly veils my eyes,
And o'er each step of my onward way
He makes new scenes to rise;
And ev'ry joy He sends me comes
A sweet and glad surprise.
So on I go, not knowing,
I would not if I might;
I'd rather walk in the dark with God
Than go alone in the light;
I'd rather walk by faith with Him
Than go alone by sight."
Yet, even after his death, his ministry continued, as friends picked up fragments
of his thought and finished his work -- friends such as James McGranahan,
who wrote music to words Bliss had written, but which were not found until
after his death:
I will sing of my Redeemer,
And His wondrous love to me;
On the cruel cross He suffered,
From the curse to set me free.
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