William Henry Havergal is very obscure today, known of by sadly few now, most remembered if any at all as the father of his youngest child, Frances Ridley Havergal. He was a wonderfully gifted musician, both as a performer and as a composer, but he declined the offer of a music professorship at Oxford to enter pastoral ministry. His Sermons and other extant writings are so very richly edifying, but just as surely his life lived out among his family, friends, and parish was a glowing example of the grace and truth of Jesus Christ, and an encouragement to all around him to follow his Lord. His younger colleague and friend Andrew James Symington wrote that "no one could possibly approach him, even in a casual way, without feeling the radiation of Christian light and warmth from his heart and beaming face, for to the core he was a true man: true to God, and true to his fellow man." Records of the Life of the Rev. William Henry Havergal was written by his oldest child, Miriam, a valuable account of an exemplary servant of the Lord, a man so blessed by the Lord and thus such a blessing to those who knew him.