Ada Ruth Habershon thought her life was ‘uneventful’, yet her story is remarkable. She was a single, middle-class, Christian woman of the late 19th and early 20th century who embarked on various Christian endeavours. In this biography, the facets of Ada, a hidden gem, are unearthed, to reveal her qualities, gifts and attributes which she used for God. Ada wrote many hymns, her most famous being, ‘He will hold me fast’. When illness struck, her life was taken in a different direction away from the busy Christian activities with which she was involved – the Ragged School, the Lock Hospital and the YWCA being but a few examples – to a more studious route of Biblical research and writing. She mingled with the wealthy, the poor and the well known Christians of the day, such as Moody and Spurgeon, supporting many philanthropic and Christian works. Her life reflected her three aims: to love God; to search the Scriptures and to serve her Saviour. This fresh biography of Ada Habershon records her early work with the destitute and downtrodden, and then God’s leading her to write hymns—she only began writing hymns in her mid-forties. Ada’s hymns (the most well-known today would be ‘He will hold me fast’ and ‘Will the circle be unbroken?’) did much good in their day and bear witness still to a deep and powerful trust in Christ.
