Benson grad­u­at­ed from the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­van­ia law school, but prac­ticed law on­ly sev­en years. In 1877, he en­tered Prince­ton The­o­log­ic­al Sem­in­ary, where his fa­ther was a trust­ee. Up­on grad­u­a­tion, Louis was or­dained a min­is­ter and pas­tored at the Pres­by­ter­i­an Church of the Re­deem­er in Ger­man­town, Penn­syl­van­ia. He al­so be­came a lead­ing au­thor­i­ty in hymn­ol­o­gy; his lib­rary even­tu­al­ly grew to 9,000 vol­umes. In 1895, Benson helped edit The Hymn­al of the Pres­by­ter­i­an Church in the United States of Amer­i­ca. Ben­son’s other works in­clude:

• The Cha­pel Hymn­al, 1898
• The School Hymn­al (ed­it­or) (Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia: The Pres­by­ter­ian board of Pub­li­ca­tion and Sab­bath-School Work, 1900).
• Studies of Fa­mil­iar Hymns (Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia: The West­min­ster Press, 1903)
• The Eng­lish Hymn: Its De­vel­op­ment and Use in Wor­ship (The Pres­by­ter­i­an Board of Pub­li­ca­tion: 1915)
• For God and Coun­try (Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia: The Pres­by­ter­i­an Board of Pub­li­ca­tion: 1918)
• Studies of Fa­mil­i­ar Hymns, se­cond ser­ies (Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia: The West­min­ster Press, 1923)
• Hymns: Original and Trans­lat­ed (Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia: Plimp­ton Press , 1925)
• The Hymnody of the Christ­ian Church (New York: George H. Dor­an Com­pa­ny, 1927)
• The Hymns of John Bun­yan (New York: The Hymn So­ci­e­ty, 1930)

Sources

Hymns

1. By Roads That Wound Up­hill and Down (1927)
2. For the Bread, Which Thou Hast Brok­en
3. From Hands That Would Our Land De­flow­er
4. Glory Lit the Wint­ry Sky, A
5. Happy Town of Sa­lem
6. I Name Thy Hal­lowed Name (1926)
7. In Lands Across the Sea
8. King Might Miss the Guid­ing Star, A
9. Light of God Is Fall­ing, The
10. Now the Win­try Days are O’er
11. O Christ, Who Didst Our Tasks Ful­fill
    • O Thou Whose Feet Have Climbed Life’s Hill
12. O Love That Lights the East­ern Sky (© 1925)
13. O Risen Christ
14. O Sing a Song of Beth­le­hem
15. O Thou Whose Gra­cious Pre­sence Blest
16. Open the Door to the Sav­ior
17. Our Willful Hearts Have Gone Astray
18. Out of the Skies, like An­gel Eyes
19. Sun Is on the Land and Sea, The
20. When I Awake from Slum­ber
21. Who Will Teach Me How to Pray?

Translations

1. Near the Cross, Her Vi­gil Keep­ing