At age 22, Whittier be­came ed­it­or of the Amer­i­can Man­u­fac­tur­er in Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts. In 1830, he be­gan ed­it­ing the Ha­ver­hill Ga­zette and the New Eng­land Week­ly Re­view (Hart­ford, Con­nec­ti­cut). In 1835, Whit­tier was elect­ed to the Mass­a­chu­setts leg­is­la­ture. From 1847 to 1859, he wrote for The Na­tion­al Era in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Whittier was in­flu­en­tial in the anti-slave­ry move­ment, and served as sec­re­tary of the Amer­i­can Anti-Slavery So­ci­e­ty. When he moved to Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­vania, he ed­it­ed the Penn­syl­vania Free­man. Mobs at­tacked him sev­er­al times be­cause of his views.

Author of almost 100 hymns, Whit­ti­er was known as Amer­i­ca’s “Quak­er po­et.” His works in­clude:

• Voices of Freedom, 1833
• Ballads and Other Poems (Lon­don: 1844)
• Songs of Labour, and Other Poems, 1850
• The Pan­o­rama, and Other Po­ems, 1856
• Poetical Works, 1869
• Complete Poetical Works, 1876
• The Bay of Seven Islands, and Other Poems, 1893

Sources

Hymns

1. All as God Wills
2. All Things Are Thine
3. Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
4. God Giveth Quietness at Last
5. Green Earth Sends Its Incense Up, The
6. Harp at Nature’s Advent Strung, The
7. Hast Thou, ’Midst Life’s Empty Noises
8. I Ask Not Now for Gold to Gild
9. I Bow My Fore­head to the Dust
10. I Know Not What the Future Hath
11. Immortal Love, Forever Full
12. It May Not Be Our Lot
13. May Freedom Speed Onward, Wherever the Blood
14. Now Is the Seed Time
15. O Backward Looking Son of Time
16. O Beauty, Old Yet Ever New
17. O Bro­ther Man
18. O Fairest Born of Love and Light
19. O He Whom Jesus Loved
20. O Ho­ly Father, Just and True
21. O Lord and Mas­ter of Us All
22. O Love! O Life!
23. O Maker of the Fruits and Flow­ers
24. O Not Alone with Outward Sign
25. O Pure Reformers, Not in Vain
26. O Sometimes Gleams upon Our Sight
27. O Thou, at Whose Rebuke the Grave
28. O Thou, Whose Presence Went Be­fore
29. O, What Thou Our Feet May Not Tread Where Christ Trod
30. Our Friend, Our Brother, and Our Lord
31. Our Thought of Thee Is Glad with Hope
32. Path of Life We Walk Today, The
33. Shall We Grow Weary in Our Watch?
34. Sound over All Wa­ters
35. Sport of the Changeful Mul­ti­tude
36. Thine Are All the Gifts, O God
37. Thou Hast Fallen in Thine Ar­mor
38. Today, Beneath Thy Chastening Eye
39. We Faintly Hear, We Dimly See
40. We See Not, Know Not
41. We May Not Climb the Heavenly Steeps
42. When on My Day of Life
43. Who Fathoms the Eternal Thought
44. With Silence Only as Their Ben­e­dict­ion
45. Within the Maddening Maze of Things