Robert Lowry

Robert Lowry (March 12, 1826 – 25 November 1899) was an American preacher who became a popular writer of gospel music in the mid- to late-19th century. His best-known hymns include “Shall We Gather at the River”, “Christ Arose!”, “How Can I Keep from Singing?” and “Nothing But The Blood Of Jesus”.

Born in Philadelphia, Lowry studied at the University at Lewisburg and entered the Baptist ministry in 1854. During the following 45 years he held a number of pastorates in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Between 1869 and 1875 he combined his pastoral work with a professorship in rhetoric at his alma mater, and later served as the University’s chancellor. From 1868 he acted as hymnals editor to Biglow and Main, the country’s leading publisher of gospel and Sunday School music; under his supervision more than 20 hymnals were produced by the firm, many of wide and enduring popularity.

Despite his protestations that preaching was his main vocation and that music was merely a sideline, it is as a hymnwriter that Lowry is chiefly remembered, ranking with such as W. H. Doane and Ira D. Sankey as one of the originators of a musical tradition that has lasted until the modern era of revival.

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