In 1866, as Arabella Katherine Hankey lay bedridden in a London hospital, many thoughts filled her mind. Her short life had been devoted to service to the Lord. As a teen, she taught a Sunday school class for children and led a Bible study for young working ladies. Katherine was an author and publisher of poems and gospel tracts. She devoted much of her time to evangelism and to distributing gospel literature. In her 20s, Katherine went to South Africa as a medical missionary, serving as a nurse. Although born into wealth and influence, she spent much of her young life in sacrificial Christian service.
Now, at 32, illness had left her unable to leave her bed. She began writing a poem to occupy her thoughts and time. As she reflected on what mattered most in her short life, the lines flowed from her pen. When she finished the two-part poem, it contained 50 stanzas. In 1867, Ms. Hankey anonymously self-published the poem and made it available for gospel distribution. She titled it “The Old, Old Story.”
The poem was instantly popular. People began reading it at evangelistic meetings and sharing it in Bible studies. From YMCA gatherings to Salvation Army services, The Old, Old Story became a useful tool in the evangelist’s hands. Many people began setting portions of the great poem to music, and several songs soon circulated. Katherine herself even set some of these lines to music and made them available. None of the early attempts to set the poem to music caught on until 1869, when composer William G. Fischer set three stanzas to music. He titled his rendition “I Love to Tell the Story.” Fischer’s hymn captured the hearts of Christians around the world.
One need not hang around a Christian church long to hear this gospel standard sung. In this hymn, we see Katherine’s many reasons for loving to hear the gospel story told. Her feelings and Fischer’s tune still resonate with believers, young and old.
Maybe it is a good time to ask ourselves whether we still love the old, old story. Do we love to tell the story? Loving the story and loving to tell it are not the same. We must have a fervent love for sharing this life-giving message. I know firsthand how I can exhaust my list of friends and family and then lose my zeal for telling the story. If we truly love to tell it, we must seek a new audience to hear it.
Katherine loved to tell it because she knew it was true. While lying in her sickbed, she proclaimed, “It satisfies my longings, as nothing else can do.” Do we still have the same gospel satisfaction? Does the message of redemption in Christ calm our fears and fill our ambitions?
Someone once left our church because I turned every message into a gospel message. Guilty! I am guilty because I agree with Ms. Hankey: “what seems each time I tell it, more wonderfully sweet.” I realize we can become so accustomed to something that we lose our appreciation for it. This should never be the case with the message of salvation. For the most part, our churches are filled with seasoned saints “who know it best, are hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.”
Personally, my favorite line comes from the last stanza. It depicts the scene of the saints singing the new song in Heaven (Revelation 5). That last line reads: “When I sing the new, new song, ‘twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.” The message of the gospel is the theme of Heaven throughout all eternity. Ephesians 2:7 “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”
This truly ’twill be my theme in glory. Every born-again child of God begins their heavenly journey with a spring in their step, a song in their heart, and the gospel on their tongue. But the world has a way of sapping the joy of the Lord from us. Satan seeks our destruction or our discouragement. The cares of this world weigh us down, and our flesh is often distracted.
I have found myself sidetracked by many good causes that, unbeknownst to me, kept me from telling the story. I have also been guilty of watching the news when I should’ve been reading the Scriptures. This left me in a state of depression. Dare I even mention the bad examples I have observed in the household of faith that caused me to doubt the effectiveness of the old, old story? “Lord, who hath believed our report?”
Many times, I have limped into church, not wanting to sing the old, old story. In times like these, I needed to hear it the most. After writing about the attacks of false teachers, Jude exhorts us: “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 20-21).
This is precisely what Katherine Hankey did while she was sick in bed for over a year. She wrote these wonderful lines to strengthen her faith. Her desire to build others up in the faith led her to publish this poem. By God’s grace, William Fischer set some of those lines to music for our edification.
Katherine fully recovered from her illness and donated all her royalties to missions. She lived in London until she entered Heaven in 1911. Her greatest missionary achievement was sharing the old, old story from a London hospital bed. Friend, have you lost the wonder of the Old, Old Story? The solution is to hear it once more.
