Having carried in my pock­et for sev­er­al months the words of the hymn “Eter­ni­ty,” which the au­thor, El­len M. H. Gates, had sent me, I hand­ed them, one day in Chi­ca­go [Il­li­nois] in 1876, to my friend P. P. Bliss, ask­ing him to write mu­sic for them. Three days lat­er he had com­posed the tune.

The hymn was much used at our meet­ings both in Great Bri­tain and the Unit­ed States. Be­fore sing­ing it, I used to tell the sto­ry of Rob­ert An­nan, of Dun­dee, Scot­land. He was one of the worst men who ev­er lived in that town, but af­ter hav­ing been con­vert­ed be­came one of the most use­ful mis­sion­ar­ies of the place. On leav­ing his lit­tle cot­tage home one morn­ing to go to his mis­sion work, he took a piece of chalk from his pock­et and wrote on the flag­stone of the walk which led to his house the single word “Eter­ni­ty.” A few min­utes lat­er he saw a child fall from one of the ves­sels in the har­bor. Be­ing a bold, strong swim­mer, he threw off his coat and shoes, and plunged in­to the bay. He saved the child, but at the cost of his own life. His bo­dy was car­ried home over the word “Eternity,” which he had writ­ten a few hours be­fore. On my last vi­sit to Scot­land, about five years ago, I went to see his wi­dow, and found that the writ­ing had been cut in­to the stone by di­rect­ion of the Hon­or­a­ble James Gor­don, the Earl of Ab­er­deen. Thou­sands go to see it ev­ery year. Mr. An­nan’s min­is­ter took me to the beau­ti­ful cem­e­te­ry at the place, where a fine mon­u­ment ten feet high, marks the last rest­ing-place of the he­ro.