Hammond, Edward Payson

1831 - 1910

Hammond, Edward Payson, was born at Ellington, Connecticut, Sep. 1, 1831. He edited Hymns of Prayer and Praise, and is the author of a few pieces in that and other evangelistic hymnals, including "Christian [Children] go and tell Jesus," and "I feel like singing all the time."

Payson was con­vert­ed when he heard Alas, and Did My Sav­ior Bleed. He was ed­u­cat­ed at var­i­ous Amer­i­can schools, and fin­ished his the­o­lo­gic­al ed­u­ca­tion in Ed­in­burgh, Scot­land. In Scot­land, he started to preach in plac­es with no Chris­tian ac­tiv­i­ty, and he could see fruit of his work. At the end of 1861 he re­turned to Amer­i­ca and preached in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois, where he met Dwight Moody. In 1866 he and his wife tra­veled to Egypt, Pal­es­tine and Eur­ope. While in Pal­es­tine, he wrote the hymn Geth­sem­a­ne. He was ve­ry fond of preach­ing to the child­ren, and was called "The Child­ren’s Evan­gel­ist." His works in­clude: Hymns of Pray­er and Praise (ed­it­or) Jesus the Child­ren’s Friend, 1864 New Prais­es of Je­sus, 1869