He was a teacher, editor, curator, translator and composer born in Columbus, Indiana, where he and his twin brother were the youngest of eight children. He studied at DePauw University from 1912 and after graduation he went on to teach in the Indiana cities of Raleigh and Rushville.
His career and further education would then be put on hold when he went into service in WWI as an artillery officer. Returning to education after the war he took studies at The University of Berlin, Harvard, Oxford and took his masters and doctorate at Boston University.
Becoming a faculty member of Boston University in 1923 he was the winner of the May Day Poetry Tournament the first time it was ever held and remaining there for many years he was given the position of Dean in 1938. However, seven years later he decided to relocate to the Southern Methodist University in Texas and become a Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Religious Literature.
For a period of 4 years between 1958 and 1962 he took up yet another new position at the Interchurch Center, New York City, as the curator of its Treasure Room and Hymn Museum.
In the world of religious music he avidly collected and composed the words for several hymns including “Spirit of Life, in This New Dawn” and “Are Ye Able?” and made a further translation of the well-known carol “Angels We Have Heard on High”.
In the editing side of his career he was the Associate Editor for the Kenosha Wisconsin Newspaper before he joined Boston University and during his career there he edited an edition of the American Student Hymnal. He would also write four books entitled Protestant Saints, Land’s Away, Chapel Windows and Cathedral and was Indiana’s Poet Laureate for 1970/1.
He died at home in Winchester, Indiana, when he was 84 years old.
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