Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

DESCRIPTION: Gospel song, with chorus "Leaning on the everlasting arms." The rest is a combination of confidence in Jesus, comfort at being in fellowship with Jesus, and simple anticipation
AUTHOR: Verse Words: Elisha A. Hoffman (1839-1929) / Music and Chorus: Anthony J. Showalter (1858-1924) (Source: Warren-EveryTimeIFeelTheSpirit)
EARLIEST DATE: 1887? (see NOTES)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Warren-EveryTimeIFeelTheSpirit, pp. 235-236, "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" (1 text, 1 tune)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 260-261, "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" (1 text)
DT, LEANARMS*
Roud #17383
RECORDINGS:
Irene Spain Family, "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" (OKeh 45322, 1929)
NOTES [455 words]: At first glance, and even at second glance, this looks like just another gospel song. I don't know of any reason to think it's any more traditional than any other church hymn. But it has achieved a certain popularity with folk revival singers, so it's here.
Warren-EveryTimeIFeelTheSpirit says that the music and chorus words of this were composed in 1888 by Showalter as a comfort to two friends who had lost their wives; he asked Hoffman to compose the verses. But Warren-EveryTimeIFeelTheSpirit also says that the song was published in 1887. An interesting trick, that.... Since other sources also say it was published in 1887 (in Showalter, Evilsizer, and Perry, The Glad Evangel for Revival, Camp, and Evangelistic Meetings), I've put that year as the Earliest Date.
EncycAmericanGospelMusic,oo, 339-340, says that Showalter was born in Virginia but went to work for a music publisher, the Ruebush-Kieffer Company, who sent him to Dalton, Georgia, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1885, he started his own music company there, and also started the Southern Normal Conservatory. He wrote tunes faster than they could be published, meaning that many of his melodies were published after his death. P. 340: "Showalter edited more than a hundred collections and wrote more than a thousand gospel and secular songs, anthems, and hymns, yet all but one of his huge output is forgotten today. That one, 'Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,' was written for a text by Elisha A. Hoffman to express sympathy for two friends who had recently lost their wives. It initially appeared in The Glad Evangel for Revival, Campe, and Evangelistic Meetings (1887), a collection compiled by S. J. Perry."
Reynolds, p. 338, says that Elisha A. Hoffman was born in Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, and went to school in Philadelphia, then attended the Evangelical Association's Union Seminary. Ordained into the Evangelical Association, he eventually became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He wrote a number of hymn texts (EncycAmericanGospelMusic, p. 187, says more than 2000 despite a lack of musical training), although few seem to have become well-known. EncycAmericanGospelMusic, p. 188, credits him with the well-known "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb" although it is often listed as anonymous. It lists this and "Down at the Cross" as his other well-known hymns.
On p. 426, Reynolds says that Showalter was born in Rockingham County, Virginia in 1858, and studied under George F. Root among others. His first music book was published in 1880. He moved to Georgia in 1884 to work for a music company, and continued in musical pursuits the rest of his life. He died in Chattanooga in 1924. - RBW
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File: DarNS260

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