Robert Harkness

Robert Harkness was the son of Abraham and Jane Elizabeth Harkness — two staunch Methodists and deeply committed Christians. He was educated at Bendigo, worked for a short time in a printing firm and then in his father’s foundry. At a very early age he displayed a remarkable musical ability on the piano and organ, and soon began to compose hymns.

Yet for all his gifts, and though raised in a godly home, Robert did not become a Christian until the age of twenty-two.

A reluctant pianist

The turning point came through the American evangelist R. A. Torrey (1856–1928) and his music director, Charles Alexander (1867–1920), who were touring Australia when they met the young pianist in Bendigo, Victoria. Harkness later told the story himself:

“Dr. Torrey and Mr. Alexander came to my hometown of Bendigo in June 1902. Prior to their coming, a committee of the Mission came to me and asked if I would help in the meetings by playing the piano. I was not interested in evangelistic meetings — in fact, I was rather opposed to them — but the thought struck me that perhaps my good father and mother would be pleased if I took part, so I consented.

In my first meeting, Mr. Alexander announced Hymn No. 7… I was not deeply interested, so I played it in an off-handish way. In playing through the ‘Glory Song,’ when I came to the chorus, I closed the book — I had memorised it quickly — and improvised an accompaniment to try to displease Mr. Alexander. But instead of displeasing him, he turned around, looked at me and said, ‘Keep it up. Keep it up. That is what we want.’ So I kept on…

At the close of the meeting Dr. Torrey asked me if I was a Christian. I straightened up and said, ‘No, I am here to play the piano.’ Dr. Torrey left me and went away — to pray for me, I think.”

After that meeting, Charles Alexander challenged Harkness to accept Christ. Moved by Alexander’s genuine concern for his soul, Harkness received Jesus Christ as his Saviour that very day. Some months later, during a mission at Dunedin, New Zealand, he dedicated his life completely to the Lord. Alexander, so impressed by the young man’s abilities, employed him in his travelling music team.

Sixty years of song

From that time onward, for the next sixty years, Harkness devoted the whole of his talents, energy and expertise to the presentation of the gospel through music, song and the spoken word. He served as accompanist and composer with Alexander from 1902 to 1916 — first as a member of the Torrey–Alexander team (1902–1909) and then with the Chapman–Alexander group (1910–1916) — travelling around the world and taking part in all their major campaigns.

During the 1909 Chapman–Alexander mission in Australia he became engaged to Adela Ruth Langsford, a trained singer, whom he married on 16 February 1912 when the team next visited Australia. After the First World War the couple moved to the United States, settling in Pasadena, near Los Angeles, where they spent the remainder of their lives giving sacred concerts and composing sacred songs.

Harkness composed, in all, more than 2,500 gospel hymns. In Pasadena he founded the Harkness Music Company, published three popular correspondence courses for hymn playing, edited a monthly magazine called The Sacred Musician, compiled hymn books, and wrote a study of his old mentor titled Reuben Archer Torrey: the Man and his Message. He returned to his home city of Bendigo seven times, and a feature of his concerts was his invitation to the audience to suggest a text — to which he would immediately compose and play a tune.

The heart of the matter

One of his most loved hymns, I Met Jesus at the Foot of the Cross, was written in 1922:

I met Jesus at the foot of the cross, when I was bound by sin; Jesus met me, cleansed my heart of its dross, He gave sweet peace within. I met Jesus at the foot of the cross, I met Jesus at the foot of the cross; All my sins were washed away; sin’s dark night turned into day, When I met Jesus at the foot of the cross.

Robert Harkness was a hugely talented Australian musician — a pianist and hymn-writer of the early 1900s — who was reluctantly persuaded to play for a revival meeting, and confessed that his heart was not in it. He even purposed to be difficult. But through the graciousness of Dr Torrey and the song-leader Charles Alexander, he was led to Jesus Christ, and the change was unmistakable: a life given fully to God’s work, faithfully, for some sixty years.

His story presses a question on every reader. God is concerned not only with what we do but with how we do it — for it is possible to perform Christian duties without a heart in tune with the Lord:

This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:8

Are we serving the Lord wholeheartedly — those of us who claim to know the Lord Jesus Christ personally as Saviour?