COME THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING
Robert Robinson was just a small boy when his dad died, and this meant that he had to go to work while still very young. Without a father to guide him, he fell in with bad crowd of friends.
One day, his gang harassed a drunken gypsy. Pouring more whiskey into her, they demanded she tell their fortunes for free. Another time, he and his rebellious friends started harassing pastors. Anther time they decided to go hear the great evangelist George Whitefield and heckle him. As Whitefield preached, a deep sense of sin came over Robert. It started a three-year journey searching out the claims of Christ - finally, at the age of 20, he made peace with God and immediately set out to become a preacher. Two years later, in 1757, he wrote a great hymn…
Come, Thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy, never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above...
He preached for many years, until he came to a hard place in his life, and then left his church because of unfair accusations. It deeply hurt him, and he walked away from his faith and became very lonely, deeply angry and extremely critical in his old age.
One day as a miserable man, he was riding in a stagecoach and a lady sitting across from him - apologized to him for singing, "Come Thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace..." And then Robert said, "Lady, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds to enjoy the feelings I had then."