Meredith’s fa­ther played the vi­o­lin, and his mo­ther sang in the church choir. By age 10, Isaac was tak­ing or­gan les­sons. By age 12, he was sing­ing al­to in the choir at the Oak Street Meth­od­ist Church in Nor­ris­town. At 13, he was con­vert­ed by the per­so­nal in­vi­ta­tion of his bro­ther. For a num­ber of years, he sang to pri­son­ers in the coun­ty jail each Sun­day morn­ing. In the sum­mer of 1891, while va­ca­tion­ing in Ocean Grove, New Jer­sey, a Dr. Mun­hall in­vit­ed him to sing in evan­gel­is­tic meet­ings. Short­ly ther­ea­fter, he en­tered evan­gel­ism him­self and be­gan writ­ing Gos­pel songs. In 1893, Mer­e­dith and Grant Tul­lar found­ed the Tul­lar-Mer­e­dith mu­sic pub­lish­ing house. Mer­e­dith him­self com­posed over 1,000 songs. Dur­ing World War I, he served in France with the Young Men Christ­ian’s As­so­ci­a­tion. Af­ter the war, in ad­di­tion to his mu­sic bu­si­ness, he served as mu­sic di­rect­or for (at var­i­ous times) the Bushw­ick Av­e­nue Meth­od­ist Church, Brook­lyn, New York; and the Ped­die Me­mor­i­al Bap­tist Church and Cen­ten­a­ry Meth­od­ist Church, New­ark, New Jer­sey. His works in­clude:

• The Bi­ble School Hymn­al (with Grant Tullar) (New York: Tull­ar-Mer­e­dith Co., 1907)

Sources

Music

1. All Hail to the Prince of Life
2. All in the Silent Night
3. Angels Adore Him
4. Beautiful Words of Jesus
5. Bells of Hope, The
6. Building, Dai­ly Build­ing
7. Come with the Wise Men
8. Father, Make Us Lov­ing
9. First Christ­mas Song, The
10. Garden of Childhood
11. Hail, Mighty Vic­tor
12. Let Us Sing for Joy
13. Move For­ward
14. O Ho­ly Bi­ble
15. Our Message
16. Precious Friend, The
    • Angels’ Sweet Refrain, The
17. Seal Us, O Ho­ly Spirit
18. Sealed Was the Tomb
19. Shine On, Bethlehem’s Star
20. Stowell
21. Tell It Out
22. Wake, Sweet­est Strain
23. Waking Out of Silence
24. We Will Fol­low Je­sus
25. Wonderful, Counselor!