The author of that noble hymn, “The God of Abraham praise,” was
Thomas Olivers, the Welsh Methodist evangelist, popularly known
as “the cobbler of Tregonan,” but who became a signal instance
of the power of grace to change the heart and to quicken genius.
Left an orphan early in life, he grew up neglected in learning
and morals, and became known as the worst character in all the
country round. But a sermon by George Whitefield, at Bristol,
entirely changed the character of the young man, and the current
of his life. Of that change he himself said: “When that sermon
began, I was one of the most abandoned and profligate young men
living; before it ended I was a new creature. The world was all
changed for Tom Olivers.”
(615)
=Credentials, Negative=--See REALISM, REFRAINING FROM.
=Credentials of Merit=--See APPRECIATION OF CHARACTER.
=Credit Refused=--See NEED, REFUSED IN THE HOUR OF.