Hymn Writers of the Church

Deems, Charles Force, was for a number of years a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and from 1866 till his death, in 1893, pastor of the Church of the Strangers, an independent congregation in New York City. He was born in Baltimore, Md., December 4, 1820; graduated at Dickinson College in 1839, after which he settled in North Carolina, entering the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church and serving as Agent of the American Bible Society in that State for 1840-41; Professor of Logic and Rhetoric in the University of North Carolina, 1842-5; Professor 404 of Chemistry in Randolph-Macon College, Virginia, 1845-46. He served as pastor of sevral Churches in the North Carolina Conference. He was President of the Greensboro Female College, North Carolina, 1846-50. In 1866 he moved to New York, where he died November 18, 1893. Deems was a popular preacher and forcible public speaker. He was the author of a valuable life of Christ, titled The Light of the Nations. In connection with Miss Phoebe Cary he edited Hymns for All Christians, 1869. As pastor of Commodore Venderbilt he had, in connection with Bishop H. N. McTyeire, not a little to do with influencing that man of princely wealth to give a million dollars to the "Central University of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South" (now Vanderbilt University), at Nashville, Tenn. He was the founder and for many years the President of the American Institute of Christian Philosophy, and also editor of its organ, Christian Thought.