 Those words became the hymn first published in the Dec 29th, 1881 edition of the salvation war national magazine

Charles Fry died the year after the publishing of the hymn, August 24 1882 in park hall, Polmont, Scotland.Fry had written the words, but no one knew the composer of the music, when the hymn was published in 1885.Only later was it discovered that a man named William Shakespeare hats wrote a melody for a secular minstrel show in 1871 with the original lyrics “the little ole log, cabin down the lane which was adapted for the popular hymn of Mr. Charles Fry.