Born with poor vi­sion, Ma­the­son’s eye­sight grad­ual­ly wors­ened un­til he was al­most to­tal­ly blind. How­ev­er, he was aca­dem­ic­al­ly gift­ed, and his sis­ters learned La­tin, Greek, and He­brew to help him stu­dy. He grad­u­at­ed from the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh (MA 1862), then be­came a min­is­ter in the Church of Scot­land. He pa­stored in the re­sort town of In­ne­lan for 18 years; due to his abil­i­ty to mem­o­rize serm­ons and en­tire sec­tions of the Bi­ble, lis­ten­ers were of­ten un­a­ware he was blind. In 1886, Matheson be­came pas­tor of St. Ber­nard’s Church in Edin­burgh, where he served 13 years. He spent the re­main­ing years of his life in lit­er­ary ef­forts. His works in­clude:

• Sac­red Songs (Ed­in­burgh, Scot­land: W. Black­wood, 1890)

Sources

Hymns

1. Come, Let us Raise a Common Song
2. Father Divine, I Come to Thee
3. Gather Us In, Thou Love That Fillest All
4. Jesus, Fountain of My Days
5. Lend Me, O Lord, Thy Softening Cloud
6. Lord, Thou Hast All My Frailty Made
7. Make Me a Captive, Lord
8. O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go
9. There Are Coming Changes Great
10. Three Doors There Are in the Temple