| poetspulpit |
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| Joined: 13 Feb 2005 |
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In 1844, poet and preacher, Joseph Scriven (born September 10, 1819) emigrated from his native Northern Ireland to Canada, almost a year after his bride-to-be drowned the day before their wedding. He spent the next forty-two years wandering between the towns of Bewdley & Port Hope, Ontario, where he wrote his poem “Pray without ceasing” hoping it might cheer up his ailing mother back in Ireland. Today, it is more commonly known as the song “What a friend we have in Jesus”
On August 10, 1886, his body was discovered in Cold Creek, east of Bewdley, not far from his friend’s house, where he had been convalescing after a terrible fever. Some say it was suicide, some say it was murder. Some say it was accidental, after he had left the house while everyone else was sleeping, looking for a drink of water from a nearby spring.
Joseph Scriven is buried in Pengelley Cemetery, supposedly foot-to-foot with his second wife-to-be, Eliza, so that when resurrected, they will stand face-to-face.
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