Born: No­vem­ber 22, 1840, Chic­o­pee Falls, Mass­a­chus­etts.

Died: March 4, 1901, North­field, Mass­a­chus­etts.

Buried: North­field, Mass­a­chus­etts.

Pseu­do­nyms

  • El Na­than
  • Eli­as Na­than
  • W. W. D.

Whittle was named af­ter Amer­i­can pol­i­ti­cian Dan­i­el Web­ster. Whit­tle reached the rank of ma­jor in the Amer­i­can ci­vil war, and for the rest of his life was known as “Ma­jor” Whit­tle. Dur­ing the war, Whit­tle lost his right arm, and end­ed up in a pris­on­er of war camp. Re­cov­er­ing from his wounds in the hos­pi­tal, he looked for some­thing to read, and found a New Test­a­ment. Though its words res­o­nat­ed with him, he was still not rea­dy to ac­cept Christ. Short­ly af­ter, a hos­pit­al or­der­ly woke him and said a dy­ing pris­on­er want­ed some­one to pray with him. Whit­tle de­murred, but the or­der­ly said, “But I thought you were a Christ­ian; I have seen you read­ing your Bi­ble.” Whit­tle then agreed to go. He re­cord­ed what took place at the dy­ing youth’s bed side:

I dropped on my knees and held the boy’s hand in mine. In a few brok­en words I con­fessed my sins and asked Christ to for­give me. I be­lieved right there that He did for­give me. I then prayed ear­nest­ly for the boy. He be­came qui­et and pressed my hand as I prayed and plead­ed God’s prom­ises. When I arose from my knees, he was dead. A look of peace had come over his trou­bled face, and I can­not but be­lieve that God who used him to bring me to the Sav­ior, used me to lead him to trust Christ’s pre­cious blood and find par­don. I hope to meet him in hea­ven.

After the war, Whittle be­came trea­sur­er of the El­gin Watch Com­pany in Chi­ca­go, Ill­i­nois. In less than 10 years, though, he en­tered the evang­el­ism field. Dur­ing this per­i­od, he worked with mu­si­cians Phil­lip Bliss and James Mc­Gran­a­han. His daugh­ter May Moody al­so wrote mu­sic for some of his lyr­ics.

Of his de­ci­sion to de­vote his life to the Gos­pel, Whittle said that, while at work, he:

…went into the vault and in the dead si­lence of the qui­et­est of plac­es I gave my life to my Heav­en­ly Fa­ther to use as He would.

Whittle’s works in­clude:

Sources

Hymns

  1. Banner of the Cross, The
  2. Beloved, Now Are We
  3. By Grace Are Ye Saved
  4. Christ Liveth in Me
  5. Church of God Is One, The
  6. Come Believing!
  7. Crowning Day, The
  8. Glory to God the Father
  9. He Is Not Here, But Is Risen!
  10. Hope of the Coming of the Lord, The
  11. I Know Whom I Have Believed
  12. I’ll Stand by until the Morn­ing
  13. I Will Pass Over You
  14. Jesus Is Coming
  15. Moment by Moment
  16. Nei­ther Do I Condemn Thee
  17. Oh, Revive Us by Thy Word
  18. Preach the Gospel
  19. Redemption Ground
  20. There Shall Be Showers of Blessing
  21. They Tell Me the Story of Jesus Is Old
  22. Thou Remainest
  23. Why Not Now?