Van DeVenter at­tend­ed Hill­sdale Coll­ege, then taught art in Shar­on, Penn­syl­van­ia. Af­ter sev­er­al years, though, he de­cided to switch to a career in evan­gel­ism, work­ing with Wil­bur Chap­man and others in Amer­i­ca and Eng­land. To­ward the end of his life, he lived in St. Pe­ters­burg, Flor­i­da, then moved to Tam­pa, Flor­i­da, around 1923. He was pro­fess­or of hymn­ol­o­gy at the Flor­i­da Bi­ble In­sti­tute (now Trin­i­ty Bi­ble Coll­ege) for four years.

Sources

Hymns

1. Heart That Was Broken for Me, The
2. I Surrender All
3. I Wandered in the Shades of Night
4. Looking This Way
5. My Mother’s Pray­er
6. Saved Through Jesus’ Blood
7. Sweeping This Way
8. We Shall Shine as the Stars