Frances Ridley Havergal was a prodigy. By age three she could read. By four, she was memorizing Scripture. By seven, she was writing verse. Born December 14, 1836, into a cultured, devout family in Astley, Worcestershire, England, she was the youngest child of William Henry Havergal—a Church of England minister, noted poet, and church musician who authored about 100 hymns himself.
Frances Ridley Havergal Finds Faith
But intellectual gifts and religious upbringing do not automatically produce faith. At fourteen years old, in 1851, Frances made her faith her own. She later described it simply: "I committed my soul to the Saviour... earth and heaven seemed brighter from that moment; I did trust the Lord Jesus."
This was not the end of her spiritual journey, but the beginning. For Frances, faith was not a destination but a deepening well. She became known as "the consecration poet"—one who gave everything, held nothing back.
God Answers Prayer for Household Salvation
The fullest expression of this came on the night of February 4, 1874.
Frances had gone for a five-day visit to Areley House. There were ten people in the house—some unconverted and long prayed for, some Christians but not yet experiencing joy. Frances prayed boldly: "Lord, give me all in this house!"
And He did.
By the last night, every person had found their breakthrough. Frances later wrote: "The last night of my visit after I had retired, the governess asked me to go to the two daughters. They were crying; then and there both of them trusted and rejoiced; it was nearly midnight."
Take My Life Hymn Story
Too overjoyed to sleep, Frances passed most of the night in praise and a fresh surrender of her own life to God. And in those midnight hours, a hymn began to form:
"Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee; Take my moments and my days, Let them flow in ceaseless praise."
The couplets "chimed in my heart one after another," she recalled, "till they finished with 'ever only, ALL FOR THEE!'"
Her sister later said this hymn was "the epitome of her life and the focus of its sunshine."
A Life of Complete Consecration
Frances Ridley Havergal died young—just 42 years old—on June 3, 1879. But in her brief life she left a body of work that continues to call believers to wholehearted devotion. She has been called "hymnody's sweetest voice" and her poetic range, though limited, remains "unsurpassed" in its depth of consecration.
Her epitaph, chosen by Frances herself, came from Psalm 17:15: "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness."
For a woman who had committed everything to Christ at fourteen, and renewed that commitment countless times since, what other words could possibly suffice?
