Ellen Maria Huntington Gates

Ellen Maria Huntington Gates (12 August 1835 – 22 October 1920) was an American hymnist and poet. Biography Ellen Maria Huntington was born in Torrington, Connecticut. Her older brother, Collis Potter Huntington, became a famous railroad builder and businessman. She married Issac Edwin Gates, and lived with him in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She began writing poems and hymns which were published in various magazines and in her published books including Night, At Noontide, The Treasures of Kurium, and To the Unborn Peoples. Another book of her poems, The Marble House and Other Poems, was published posthumously. Some of her most well known hymns and poems include Your Mission, The Prodigal Child, The Home of the Soul, and Eternity (also known as O, The Clanging Bells of Time) Her hymn Your Mission was sung by Philip Phillips, an evangelical song writer [See J. H Hall, Biography of Gospel Song and Hymnwriters, Fleming H. Revell, 1914; also Philip Phillips, The Singing Pilgrim, Philip H. Phillips and company, Cincinnati, 1866] at the gathering of the United States Christian Commission in Washington, D.C. at the start of the American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln, who was in attendance, loved it so much he requested it be sung twice. Afterwards it became known as "President Lincoln's favourite hymn."