Mary Dagworthy Yard James (August 7, 1810 – October 4, 1883) was an American hymnwriter. Mary Dagworthy Yard was born in

Trenton, New Jersey Trenton is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784.Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

father and

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...

mother. She converted to

Methodism Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's br ...

as a child and began teaching Sunday school in the

Methodist Episcopal church The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself on a national basis. In ...

at the age of 13. In 1834, Yard married Henry B. James; and in 1853, she helped to found a home orphans. She became a leader in the Wesleyan Holiness Movement helping Phoebe Palmer, one of the founders of the movement; leading meetings; and writings roughly 50 hymns. She also wrote articles for publications such as ''Guide to Holiness'', the ''New York Christian Advocate'', ''The Contributor'', ''The Christian Witness'', ''The Christian Woman'', ''The Christian Standard'', and the ''Ocean Grove Record''. She also wrote ''The Soul Winner'' in 1883. James died on October 4, 1883, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and is buried in her hometown of Trenton, New Jersey.

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