Horatio was the author of a hymn many of you might know "It is Well". The Spafford family had their share of hard times. Their only son died of scarlet fever when he was four years old. Only a year later, the Spaffords had invested a lot of money into real estate that was wiped out in the Chicago Fire of 1871. These recent events had been hard for the family. Horatio saw this, and decided his family needed to take a trip and get away. He decided to take his family to England for a holiday. They had also decided to help their good friend. D.L. Moody (who was traveling on one of his evangelistic campaigns). The Spafford family had planned on joining D.L. Moody in 1873. Just when they were about to set sail, a last minute business complication came up that Horatio had to deal with. He didn't want to ruin the family vacation, he told his wife and kids to go ahead and he would be there as soon as he could. Spafford went to Chicago to deal with the business, and got a telegram from his wife just nine days later that read "Saved Alone".
On the 2nd of November 1873, the ship that the Horatio, family had left on collided with another ship. The ship sank in about ten minutes. Which took 226 lives, including that of the Spafford family's four girls. Horatio immediately left on a ship to join his wife. Who knows what Horatio was feeling? But during all this hardship, he wrote this one song.
Wow! Thank you for sharing, that's amazing!
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