Perfect Peace - Frances Ridley Havergal

1836–79

In addition to the substantial number of hymns she wrote, Frances Ridley Havergal maintained correspondence with several friends. In today’s world of tweets and e-mail, letter writing might already be a lost art form. Fortunately, some of Havergal’s friends kept her letters and later shared them. These epistles often contain important nuggets of spiritual wisdom.

For instance, writing to a friend who was struggling with doubt about her salvation, Frances quoted the promise of Romans 5:1—“Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (KJV). She went on to say that this peace is “yours already, purchased for you, made for you, sealed for you, pledged to you—by the word of the Father and the ‘precious blood of Jesus!’” Apparently, Frances recognized the vicious circle that many Christians get into, struggling to feel at peace. The harder they struggle, the less peace they feel, which makes them struggle more. But God’s peace is a gift already given. We don’t have to fight for it.

Frances developed this idea in the lyrics to one stately hymn that’s still sung today:

Like a river glorious, is God’s perfect peace,

Over all victorious, in its bright increase;

Perfect, yet it floweth, fuller every day,

Perfect, yet it groweth, deeper all the way.

Perfectionism was a big issue among Christians in the mid-1800s. Shouldn’t we seek to become so sanctified, committed to Christ and led by the Spirit, that we are essentially living sin-free lives? Different churches had different takes on the matter, and new movements were formed on this principle. Without getting too deep into the theology of it all, we should point out the cleverness of Frances’s poetry in this song. If something is already perfect, how can it get fuller and deeper? And yet, that’s the experience of the growing believer.

Frances Ridley Havergal lived only to the age of forty-two. She wrote the text for about fifty hymns—an impressive number, but far from the output of Watts or Wesley or Crosby. Still, her smart but simple approach to Christian commitment was an important gift to the church at a crucial time.

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

Isaiah 26:3