Born: May 21, 1867, near En­köp­king, Swe­den.

Died: May 24, 1927, Ud­de­val­la, Swe­den.

After em­i­grat­ing to Amer­i­ca in the 1890’s, Blom joined the Sal­va­tion Ar­my in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois. Af­ter­wards, he at­tend­ed North Park Coll­ege and Sem­in­a­ry, then served as a min­is­ter in the Evan­gel­ic­al Co­ve­nant Church. How­ev­er, he fell away from the Gos­pel, and end­ed up in pri­son:

I drift­ed from God, and be­came em­bit­tered with my­self and the world.

After leav­ing pri­son, Blom un­der­went a spir­it­u­al re­viv­al, and wrote the “He the Pear­ly Gates Will Open” to de­scribe his re­birth. He went on to serve as pas­tor at a Swed­ish Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church in Penn­syl­van­ia be­fore re­turn­ing to his na­tive Swe­den in 1921.

Sources

Hymns

1. He the Pear­ly Gates Will Open