O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.  You are the one who calls not the righteous but sinners.  You call through our defiance, through our confusion, through the first turning of our hearts toward you.  Softly you call, tenderly you call, always you call, waiting to renew our hearts and bring us home.  In your wonderful name.  Amen.

Rebuffed in an ear­ly at­tempt to sell his songs to a com­mer­cial pub­lish­er, Will Lamartine Thompson (b. East Liverpool, Ohio, November 7, 1847; d. New York, New York, September 20, 1909) start­ed his own pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny. He lat­er ex­pand­ed, open­ing a store to sell pi­an­os, or­gans and sheet mu­sic. Both a lyr­i­cist and com­pos­er, he en­sured he would al­ways re­mem­ber words or mel­o­dies that came to him at odd times: "No mat­ter where I am, at home or ho­tel, at the store or tra­vel­ing, if an idea or theme comes to me that I deem wor­thy of a song, I jot it down in verse. In this way I ne­ver lose it."Thompson took ill dur­ing a tour of Eur­ope, and his fam­i­ly cut short their tra­vels to re­turn home. He died a few weeks lat­er.