"More Holiness Give Me"

Episode 19: The history behind “More Holiness Give Me”: Philip Paul Bliss was born in 1838 and grew up in rural Pennsylvania and Ohio. When he was 10 years old and selling vegetables to help support the family, Philip first heard a piano and was unable to resist the temptation that lured him through an open door and into the parlor. Barefoot and ragged, he stood spellbound until the music ceased. Philip, in ecstacy, cried out, “O lady, play some more.” The young lady, surprised at the unexpected intrusion by the ragged stranger, rudely ordered him out of the house, but he left with sweet memories of the music. By the 1870s Bliss began to devote a great deal of energy to the composition of sacred music. In 1873 he wrote “More Holiness Give Me,” the hymn rendered by the following artists in this episode: The Brigham Young Unversity Singers, Ron Staheli, Lex de Azevedo, Kenneth Cope, Michael Dowdle, and the Brigham Young University Men’s Chorus.