Harris, John

Author

b Ugborough, S Devon 1802, d Hampstead, Middx 1856. The eldest of 8 children, and not too robust, he helped in his father’s tailor’s and draper’s shop but spent much of his free time reading. When the family moved to Bristol they attended the Cathedral, but one rainy day they dropped into the nearer Tabernacle Church and resolved to settle there. John was active in the Sunday School boys’ prayer meeting, became a church member when he turned 17 and was soon preaching in the neighbourhood. He trained for the Congregational ministry at Hoxton Academy, London; ministered at Epsom Congregational Ch, Surrey, from 1825 before becoming President of Cheshunt Coll, Herts, in 1838 at the age of 36, and Principal of New Coll London, from 1850. (The college moved subsequently to Cambridge.) Brown Univ in Boston, USA, awarded him an Hon DD. Among his published works, mainly theological, were The Great Teacher (1835), The Pre-Adamite Earth (1846), and a book of verse, The Incarnate One. His best-known hymn, included here, was one of several offered for the Congregational Hymn Book of 1855, and has kept its place, often abbreviated, in many Free Church collections. No.229.