Indelible Grace Hymnbook

Born: Sep­tem­ber 27, 1735, Swaff­ham, Nor­folk, Eng­land.

Died: June 8, 1790, Show­ell Green, War­wick­shire, Eng­land.

Buried: Key Hill Cem­e­te­ry, Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land.

Robinson’s wi­dowed mo­ther sent him at age 14 to Lon­don, to learn the trade of bar­ber and hair dress­er. How­ev­er, his mas­ter found he en­joyed read­ing more than work. Con­vert­ed to Christ at age 17, Ro­bin­son be­came a Meth­od­ist min­is­ter. He lat­er moved to the Bapt­ist church and pas­tored in Cam­bridge, Eng­land. He wrote a num­ber of hymns, as well as on the sub­ject of the­ol­o­gy. His lat­er life was ev­i­dent­ly not an ea­sy one, judg­ing from a well known sto­ry about his hymn Come, Thou Fount of Ev­ery Bless­ing. One day, he en­count­ered a wo­man who was stu­dy­ing a hym­nal, and she asked how he liked the hymn she was hum­ming. In tears, he re­plied, "Madam, I am the poor un­hap­py man who wrote that hymn ma­ny years ago, and I would give a thou­sand worlds, if I had them, to en­joy the feel­ings I had then."