About the Author:
“Follow On“, also known in certain cases as “Down In The Valley With My Saviour I Would Go” and “I Will Follow Jesus“, is a Christian hymn written in 1878 by William Orcutt Cushing. The music for it was composed in 1880 by both Robert Lowry abd W. Howard Doane.
The hymn was originally written as a Baptist hymn and it is also used by the Salvation Army. The lyrics are based on the Biblical verse in Hosea 6:3.
Cushing wrote this hymn in New York after he became a Christian minister in 1854; he started writing hymns in 1870 when his health declined, forcing him to retire. He wrote more than three hundred hymns.
Cushing once said about his inspiration to write it:
Longing to give up all for Christ who had given his life for me, I wanted to be willing to lay everything at his feet, with no wish but to do his will, to live henceforth only for his glory. Out of this feeling came the hymn, ‘Follow On.’ It was written with the prayer and the hope that some heart might by it be led to give up all for Christ. Much of the power and usefulness of the hymn, however, are due to Mr. Lowry, who put it into song.
