Son of John Vine Hall, New­man was ed­u­cat­ed at Tot­ter­idge School; High­bury Coll­ege, Lon­don; and the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Lon­don (BA 1841, LL.B. 1856). From 1842-1854, he was min­is­ter of Al­bi­on Church, Hull. Start­ing in 1854, he di­rect­ed Sur­rey Chap­el and its suc­cess­or, Christ Church, West­min­ster. He was al­so chair­man of the Con­gre­ga­tion­al Un­ion of Eng­land and Wales in 1876. He pub­lished several prose works and num­er­ous tracts, in­clud­ing “Come to Jesus”:

He went out one ev­en­ing from a din­ner par­ty to preach to a throng who had ga­thered in the street. A prim­i­tive Meth­od­ist was sing­ing to the crowd that fa­mil­iar dit­ty, “Come to Je­sus just now.” Mr. Hall caught up the words and ex­tem­po­rized a pow­er­ful ex­hor­ta­tion on the spot. He re­peat­ed it to his own con­gre­ga­tion. Soon af­ter­wards, be­ing con­fined to his room by a long ill­ness, he re­called the dis­course and de­ter­mined to turn it into a short prac­tic­al trea­tise for in­quir­ers af­ter sal­va­tion. He wrote it out in the few­est and simp­lest words pos­si­ble, and his bro­ther, Mr. War­ren Hall, print­ed two thou­sand co­pies for dis­tri­bu­tion. Such was the ori­gin of that won­der­ful tract, “Come to Jesus,” which has al­rea­dy been cir­cu­lat­ed in thir­ty dif­fer­ent lan­guag­es to the num­ber of three mil­lion five hun­dred thou­sand co­pies.

Hall’s other works in­clude:

• Hymns Com­posed at Bol­ton Ab­bey, and Other Rhymes (Lon­don: Nis­bet, 1858)
• Cloud and Sun­shine (Lon­don: Ham­il­ton, Ada­ms & Co., 1870)
• Christ Church Hymn­al, for the Use of the Con­gre­ga­tion of Christ Church, West­min­ster Road (Lon­don: Nisbet, 1876)
• Pilgrim Songs in Sun­shine and Shade (Lon­don: 1870)
• Supplemental Pil­grim Songs
• Songs of Earth and Heav­en (Lon­don: Holder & Stough­ton, 1886)

Sources

Hymns

1. Accepting, Lord, Thy Gra­cious Call
2. Come to Jesus! Friend of Sin­ners
3. Come, Lord, to Earth Again
4. Day Again Is Dawn­ing
5. Friend of Sin­ners, Lord of Glo­ry
6. God Bless Our Dear Old Eng­land
7. Hallelujah, Joy­ful Raise
8. I Know Who Makes the Dai­sies
9. I Want to Live and Be a Man
10. I’ve Wan­dered Far from Home
11. Lord, We Do Not Ask to Know
12. Lord, We Obey Thy Kind Com­mand
13. O for the Love, the Per­fect Love
14. O Jesus, Who to Fa­vored Friend
15. To Da­vid’s Son, Ho­san­na