In spite of his intellectual achievements, William Cowper was physically frail and emotionally sensitive throughout his childhood. One of the traumatic experiences that contributed to his emotional instability was the death of his mother when he was only six years old. Unable to properly deal with this grief that he experienced as a small child, it stayed with him throughout his life. He never stopped grieving for his mother. Even though he passed his law examination and was licensed as a lawyer, the very prospect of appearing before the bar for his final examination frightened him to the extent that he had a mental breakdown from which he never recovered. As a result, he never practiced law, but preferred the study and writing of literature. Added to the anxiety of his bar examination was an unhappy love affair that resulted in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. He was, therefore placed in an insane asylum for a period of eighteen months.  While confined in the asylum and suffering from prolonged periods of deep depression he would spend much of his time in reading the Scriptures. Remembering his spiritual upbringing as a child and his concern for the eternal destiny of his soul, he struggled with the question of his salvation and peace with God. One day, while reading the Book of Romans, he was confronted with the words of the Apostle Paul who said:  "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God set forth to be a propitiation (satisfaction) through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God" --Romans 3:23-25  .  While admitting his need of personal redemption and the sufficiency that is in the shed blood of Jesus our great Savior, being convicted by the Holy Spirit, William Cowper realized a personal relationship with Christ and a sense of forgiveness of sin. He, therefore, was gloriously converted at the age of thirty-three years old in 1764.
 

While sitting alone one day at his desk in his little house, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and with the words of the prophet Zechariah (13:1) fresh in his mind, he began to pen the words to this timeless hymn.