Turn Your eyes upon Jesus #2



Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.

Words & Music: Helen H. Lemmel, 1922

 
This hymn was first pub­lished in Glad Songs, by the Brit­ish Na­tion­al Sun­day School Un­ion. Its lyr­ics were in­spired by the Gos­pel tract Fo­cused, by Lil­i­as Trot­ter, which in­clud­ed these words:

So then, turn your eyes upon Him, look full in­to His face and you will find that the things of earth will ac­quire a strange new dim­ness.

Helen Howarth Lemmel
Born: No­vem­ber 14, 1863, War­dle, Eng­land. Died: No­vem­ber 1, 1961, at her home in Se­at­tle, Wash­ing­ton
Buried: Lemmel was cre­mat­ed, but her fin­al rest­ing place is un­known to us.

Daughter of a Meth­od­ist min­is­ter, Hel­en em­i­grat­ed from Eng­land with her fam­i­ly to Amer­i­ca when she was 12 years old. They first set­tled in Miss­iss­ip­pi, then re­lo­cat­ed to Wis­con­sin. She moved to Se­at­tle in 1904, and for three years was mu­sic cri­tic for the Se­at­tle Post-In­tel­li­genc­er.

While in­ter­view­ing Ger­man sing­er Er­nest­ine Schu­mann-Hein, Hel­en was per­suad­ed to go to Eur­ope. A gift­ed sing­er, she stu­died mu­sic in Ger­ma­ny for four years. Up­on her re­turn to Amer­i­ca, she be­gan giv­ing con­certs and tra­vel­ing on the Chau­tau­qua cir­cuit.

Event­u­al­ly, she be­came a vo­cal mu­sic teach­er at the Moo­dy Bi­ble In­sti­tute in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois. Af­ter re­tire­ment, she moved to Se­at­tle, Wash­ing­ton, where she was a mem­ber of the Bal­lard Bap­tist Church. Among her works are a hymn­al used by evan­gel­ist Bil­ly Sun­day for over a de­cade. Lem­mel and a wo­men’s chor­al group she di­rect­ed were part of Sun­day’s group at the peak of his ca­reer.

Hebrews 12:1-3

Therefore, since we have

so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us,

 let us also lay aside every encumbrance

and the sin which so easily entangles us,

and let us run with endurance

the race that is set before us,

fixing our eyes on Jesus,

the author and perfecter of faith,

who for the joy set before Him endured the cross,

despising the shame,

and has sat down

at the right hand of the throne of God. 

For consider Him who has endured such hostility

by sinners against Himself,

so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.