Written Over the Wreckage

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford stood on a ship crossing the Atlantic, knowing that somewhere beneath those cold waters, his four daughters had drowned weeks before. The Ville du Havre had sunk in a collision. His wife Anna cabled him from Wales: "Saved alone. What shall I do?"

He came to her anyway.

Spafford had already buried a young son to scarlet fever, and the Great Chicago Fire had wiped out much of his wealth. Now this. As his ship passed near the place where his daughters went down, he wrote words that would outlast his grief by centuries:

When peace like a river attendeth my way,