Furness grad­u­at­ed from Har­vard in Arts and The­ol­o­gy, 1820. He served as pas­tor at the First Unitarian Church in Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia, for 50 years, and as pas­tor emeritus for 21 years more. He was an ac­comp­lished schol­ar, and ac­tive­ly worked on re­forms of var­i­ous kinds. His works in­clude:

• A Manual of Domestic Wor­ship, 1840
• A trans­la­tion of Schiller’s Songs of the Bell
• Verses, Transla­tions and Hymns, 1886

Sources

Hymns

1. Father in Heaven, to Thee My Heart
2. Feeble, Helpless, How Shall I?
3. Have Mercy, O Father
4. Here in a World of Doubt
5. Here in the Broken Bread
6. Ho­ly Father, Gracious Art Thou
7. I Feel Within a Want
8. In the Morn­ing I Will Raise
9. O for a Prophet’s Fire
10. Richly, O Richly Have I Been
11. She Is Not Dead, but Sleepeth
12. That God Is Love, Unchanging Love
13. Thou Who Dost All Things Give