Rufus H. McDaniel

The Rev. Rufus Henry McDaniel (1850–1940) was an American pastor, poet, and prominent gospel hymnwriter whose lyrics captured the energetic, joyful spirit of the late 19th and early 20th-century revival movements. Ordained in the Christian Church in 1873, McDaniel viewed hymnody not merely as a musical ornament to a Sunday service, but as a direct, vital tool for pastoral care—a way to pour light and hope into the lives of struggling people. He pastored several congregations across Ohio, including churches in prominent areas like Cincinnati and Dayton. Throughout his long pastoral career, he noticed that while deep, theological sermons were essential, it was often the simple, repetitive strains of gospel songs that sustained his parishioners through poverty, illness, and personal grief.

By the 1880s, McDaniel began actively writing devotional poetry with the intentional goal of having it set to music. He approached his writing with remarkable humility, writing that he felt in his soul that God had something for him to do in brightening the experience of struggling souls, and that his chief desire was to be a blessing to his fellow men through his hymns. His verses intentionally avoided complex theological jargon, opting instead for bright, clear, and highly conversational language that emphasized the immediate transformation of the human heart through faith. Though McDaniel penned numerous texts, his name is universally immortalized by a single, wildly joyful hymn written in 1914, titled "Since Jesus Came Into My Heart."

The song was born during a time of intense personal sorrow following the devastating loss of one of his sons, Herschel, in 1913. In the deep valley of that grief, rather than succumbing to despair, he channeled his pain into an exuberant declaration of Christian hope and spiritual renewal. He sent the poem to the legendary gospel composer Charles H. Gabriel, who immediately set it to a bouncy, rhythmic, and incredibly catchy melody. The song made its grand public debut at the massive Billy Sunday-Homer Rodeheaver evangelistic crusades in Philadelphia in 1915 and became an absolute overnight phenomenon. Tens of thousands of workers, businessmen, and families sang the lively tune, celebrating the wonderful change wrought in life and the floods of joy rolling like sea billows since Jesus came into the heart. McDaniel lived a long, fruitful life, witnessing his kitchen-table poem travel across the globe to be translated into dozens of languages before he passed away in 1940 at the advanced age of 90.