The Ninety and Nine

And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.

Matthew 18:13

Evangelist D.L. Moody enlisted Ira Sankey as the song leader and soloist at his great campaigns. The two became a renowned duo; but unfortunately, within a few years Sankey's magnificent voice was ruined by overuse. Later in life, exhausted and facing blindness, he was invited by Dr. J.H. Kellogg (of Kellogg's cereal fame) to Battle Creek, Michigan, for convalescence. There Sankey finished a long-anticipated book of hymn stories. But a fire destroyed his manuscript and all his notes. He rewrote the book as well as memory would allow, and there we find the story of "The Ninety and Nine."

In 1874, Moody and Sankey had just finished a series of meetings in Glascow. At the station in route to Edinburgh, Sankey picked up a penny newspaper, hoping for news from America. Aboard the train, he perused the paper, finding in it a poem by a woman named Elizabeth C.Clephane.

Sankey wrote:

I called Mr. Moody's attention to it, and he asked me to read it to him. This I proceeded to do with all the vin and energy at my command. After I finished I looked at Moody to see what the effect had been, only to discover he had not heard a word, so absorbed was he in a letter he had received. I cut out the poem and placed it in my musical scrapbook.

At the meeting on the second day, the subject was the Good Shepherd. At the conclusion Moody turned to me with the question: "have you a solo appropriate for this subject with which to close?" I was troubled to know what to do. At this moment I seemed to hear a voice saying: "Sing the hymn you found on the train!" But I thought this impossible, as no music had been written for it. Placing the newspaper slip on the organ, I lifted my heart in prayer, struck the key of A flat, and began to sing.

Note by note the tune was given, which has not been changed from that day to this. Mr. Moody was greatly moved. He came to where I was seated and said, 'Sankey, where did you get this hymn? I've never heard the like of it in my life.' Moved to tears, I replied, 'Mr. Moody, that's the hymn I read to you yesterday on the train, which you did not hear.' 

Taken from the book: Then Sings My Soul