The Solid Rock

Words by the Rev. Edward Mote Music by William B. Bradbury

“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.”

“I went astray from my youth, ”said the author of this hymn. ”My Sundays were spent on the streets in play. So ignorant was I that I did not know there was a God. ”He was a cabinet-maker, and was converted under the preaching of the Rev. John Hyatt. The refrain came into the author's mind one morning in 1834, as he was walking up Holborn Hill, London, on his way to work. Four stanzas were completed that day and two more on the following Sunday. In 1852 Mr. Mote became the pastor of a Baptist church in Horsham, Sussex, where he continued to minister for more than twenty years. In his eighty-first year his health declined. ”I think I am going to heaven, ”he said; ”yes, I am nearing port. The truths I have preached I am now living upon, and they will do to die upon. Ah! the precious blood! The precious blood which takes away all our sins; it is this which makes peace with God. ”And so he passed peacefully away, his hope ”built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness."