It Is Well with My Soul

What the hymn says

The hymn centers on an immovable peace that remains steady even when personal grief or trials arrive like a flood. The verses contrast human sorrow and trouble with the ultimate redemption of the soul. The song moves from deep personal distress to a forward-looking hope, resting on the idea that faith does not depend on easy circumstances or pleasant surroundings. Instead, it holds fast when life turns difficult.

Horatio Spafford wrote the words after a horrific Atlantic shipwreck took the lives of his four daughters. His wife survived the disaster and sent him a telegram from Wales. Spafford boarded a ship to join her, and as they passed the spot where his daughters had perished, he wrote these lines. Knowing the author lost his children gives the text a raw weight, transforming the words from abstract poetry into a real response to deep sorrow.

The story behind it

Horatio Spafford wrote the text in 1873 following the tragic loss of his family at sea. Musician Philip Bliss composed the tune shortly afterward, naming the melody after the author. The hymn spread quickly through revival meetings and church hymnals, eventually becoming one of the most widely recognized songs of comfort and endurance in Christian history.

Four things to notice

• Notice how the opening lines refuse to deny pain while still affirming a quiet, unshakable inner peace.
• Observe the transition from personal grief to a broad theological hope regarding future restoration.
• Consider how the music matches the steady, measured rhythm of a ship crossing the ocean waves.
• Reflect on why this song remains a common choice for memorial services and moments of profound trial.

The text

Text: Tabernacle Hymns No. 2 (1921), no. 26, “H. G. Spafford / P. P. Bliss” — OCR text of the scanned hymnal on Internet Archive (item tabernaclehymnsn00rade), syllable hyphens rejoined: https://archive.org/details/tabernaclehymnsn00rade . Cross-checked stanzas 1–3 against The Canadian Soldiers' Song Book (1918), a proofread Wikisource transcription: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Canadian_Soldiers%27_Song_Book/When_Peace_Like_a_River , and all four stanzas against hymnary.org/text/when_peace_like_a_river_attendeth_my_way.

Public domain worldwide. Horatio Spafford wrote the words after the 1873 Atlantic crossing in which his four daughters died; Philip Bliss set them to music and published them in Gospel Songs No. 2 (1876). The 1921 hymnal printing used here is also out of copyright.

Scriptures behind the words

Verses on peace that holds in trouble — printed verbatim from the public-domain King James Version and World English Bible.

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