Hallelujah! Christ is Victor

The tune for this hymn is "Hold the Fort".

At a YMCA conference in 1870, Major Daniel Whittle, a former officer in the Civil War, preached a stirring sermon from Revelation 2:25;3:11. "Only hold on to what you have until I come."

Major Whittle then used an illustration from his war experience to close the message -

A small force of Northern soldiers in charge of guarding a great quantity of supplies at the Allatoona Pass was besieged and hard pressed by greatly superior Confederate forces. Finally General French, the Confederate leader, commanded the Federal troops to surrender. At that moment on a hill some distance away the Northern leader, General Sherman, flashed a signal to his troops -

"Hold the fort, I am coming. Sherman."

In the audience that night when Major Whittle told this story was Philip P. Bliss, a well-known writer of early gospel music.

The account so captivated Bliss that he could not sleep that evening until he had completed both the text and the music for a new song, "Hold the Fort." At the next day's YMCA service, Bliss introduced his rousing new gospel hymn to the delegates. The response was immediate and enthusiastic.

"Hold the Fort" later became a great favorite in the Moody-Sankey campaigns in the U.S. and in Great Britain. During a Moody-Sankey campaign in the British Isles in 1874, Lord Shaftesbury, an esteemed Christian statesman, announced to the audience at the closing service, "If Mr. Sankey has done no more than teach our people to sing 'Hold the Fort', he has conferred inestimable blessing on the British Empire, and it would have been worth all the expense of these meetings."

Before his tragic death at the early age of 38, Philip Bliss contributed other fine gospel hymns that are still much enjoyed. Even though Bliss never considered "Hold the Fort" to be one of his better songs, his monument at Rome, Pennsylvania, bears this inscription -

"P. P. Bliss, author of 'Hold the Fort.'" - '52 Hymn Stories Dramatized' by Kenneth W. Osbeck

Hallelujah! Christ is Victor, therefore do and dare! Lord You're on the throne no matter where we are or what we're going through. Therefore we dare - even to pray things we deem impossible, to pray for places far away from us, to pray for Your move...Lord, send us in prayer wherever You desire!