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When darkness seems to hide his face / In every high and stormy gale / Through the storm my anchor holds We shared in the sense of shock, felt some of the pain and fear and listened as melody and words began to rise.” Just walking down the street was enough to know that people had been shaken to their very foundations… as the city closed in, I met with some friends. When Morgan arrived, the nation was still reeling: “It had left them at the intersection of fear, doubt and sorrow. It was the deadliest attack in the country since the second world war.
#CORNERSTONE SONG PLUS#
Piecing together Morgan’s interviews on the subject, plus his own blog on Hillsong Collected it seems the song emerged out of an exceptionally dark time for the nation of Norway. Morgan had travelled there in 2011, arriving the day after the horrific attacks by Anders Breivick, which had claimed the lives of 77 people. In 2012, when Reuben Morgan added his own chorus and melody, he left out these lines, but took the entire first two verses as Mote wrote them – hence including the somewhat unintelligible phrase “I dare not trust the sweetest frame.” Shaken to the core (He currently resides in the graveyard there, so you could say that the church members got their wish after all!)īased on the parable of the wise and foolish builders, Mote’s original version of this much-loved song included the lines: “On Christ the solid rock I stand / All other ground is sinking sand” – words taken verbatim by Delirious? for their song ‘Solid rock’.
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He was liked enough by his congregation that they offered to give him the chapel building as a gift, which he wisely declined. In his 50s, Mote became the pastor of a Baptist church in Horsham. When things start to fall apart, we wonder whether what we have built our life upon is capable of sustaining us Soon after, in 1837, approximately 100 of his hymns were published, including this one. He was working as a cabinet maker in London when he wrote the hymn. It was a while before he was exposed to the gospel, but he responded and was baptised at 18. Mote’s parents ran a pub in London and left the young Edward to play in the street.
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