Daniel Brink Towner, music director at several Methodist Episcopal churches and for many years head of the music department at Moody Bible Institute, died on this date, 3 October, in 1919. He was the editor of several hymnals and the composer of hundreds of tunes, among the most familiar being his music for William Reed Newell's hymn At Calvary. You'll remember the opening words and the refrain:



Years I spent in vanity and pride,

Caring not my Lord was crucified,

Knowing not it was for me He died, on Calvary.



Mercy there was great, and grace was free;

Pardon there was multiplied to me;

There my burdened soul found liberty, at Calvary.



Towner was born in 1850 in Rome, Pennsylvania and shares the honors of that town with the great hymn composer Philip Paul Bliss, who is memorialized by a cenotaph in the cemetery there and whose home is maintained as the site of the Gospel Songwriters Museum.