A Traveler On His Way To Jerusalem

A Traveler On His Way To Jerusalem

He started early.

HENRY ALFORD was born in 1810 in London, where his father was an Anglican vicar and his mother died in childbirth. From a young age, he showed an aptitude for artistic and scholarly pursuits and a commitment to his Lord. One of his hobbies as a boy was writing little books. When he was only five, he wrote a five-page book entitled The Travels of St. Paul from his Conversion to his Death. He was writing Latin odes before he was ten. At age ten he wrote Looking unto Jesus, or, The Believers Support under Trials and Afflictions. The first chapter began: “Looking unto Jesus is not, as some would suppose, looking to him with our bodily eyes, for we cannot see Jesus as the apostles did, and other holy men; but it is here taken in a spiritual sense, and means first, a looking unto him by faith, second, praying to him.”

At twenty-two he graduated from Trinity College and was ordained the next year as his father’s assistant. Two years later he married and became a fellow of Trinity College. While at Trinity he began his most ambitious work, The Greek Testament. This four-volume classic commentary on the New Testament, on which he worked for sixteen years, is still in use today. In 1835 he became vicar of Wymesworld and remained there for the next eighteen years.

In 1853 he became the minister of Quebec Chapel in London, and four years later he was appointed dean of Canterbury. He remained in that position for eighteen years until his death.

Few people in the history of the church have displayed the lifelong productivity and range of abilities of Henry Alford. In addition to his preaching, teaching, and research, Alford wrote and translated poetry and prose, and was a watercolor painter and wood-carver. He played and composed music for piano and organ and wrote the hymns “Come, Ye Thankful People Come” and “Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand.”

When Henry Alford died, on January 12, 1871, the much-loved dean was deeply mourned. The funeral procession wended its way from Canterbury Cathedral to St. Martin’s Churchyard. There the graveside service ended with the singing of Alford’s hymn:

Ten thousand times ten thousand

In sparkling raiment bright,

The armies of the ransomed saints

Throng up the steeps of light;

’Tis finished, all is finished,

Their fight with death and sin;

Fling open wide the golden gates,

And let the victors in!

Bring near thy great salvation,

Thou Lamb for sinners slain;

Fill up the roll of thine elect,

Then take thy power and reign;

Appear, Desire of nations,

Thine exiles long for home;

Show in the heaven thy promised sign,

Thou Prince and Saviour, come!

Henry Alford had many accomplishments but little need for accolades. After his death the following memorandum from him was found: “When I am gone and a tomb is to be put up, let there be, besides any indication of who is lying below, these words and these only: The Inn of a Traveler on His Way to Jerusalem.”—Henry Alford

Reflection

How do you react when you hear of someone who wrote Latin odes before the age of ten and then grew up to be a famous author? God has given few people gifts like Henry Alford’s, but he has equipped every one of his children to accomplish whatever he has purposed for them.

May the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, all that is pleasing to him.

Hebrews 13:20-21