This powerfully soothing hymn comes down to us thanks to the efforts of African American preachers and musicians, most notably Bishop and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), Richard Allen (1760-1831). Allen published the hymn in 1801 in “A Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs Selected from Various Authors.”

The text is drawn from Jeremiah 8:22 — “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wounds of my people?” In ancient times, Gilead, a mountainous region east of the Jordan River, was known for its skillful physicians and a healing ointment made from a local gum tree. Jeremiah, as a prophet, is predicting what will come to pass in the New Testament: Jesus, the healer of our souls, comes to salve all our wounds, by his own wounds and by his teachings.

Richard Allen was born into slavery in Delaware, and as a youth, witnessed his mother and two siblings being sold away from the plantation. He began attending a local Methodist church open to slaves, and was soon speaking publicly and evangelizing. When a popular Abolitionist preacher visited, Allen’s then master became persuaded that slavery was a sin and offered his slaves the chance to buy their freedom. In 1780, Allen paid for his emancipation and gave himself the last name of Allen. (It is telling, of course, that the recognition of sinfulness on the part of the slave-owner did not extend to his finances…)

Allen moved to Philadelphia, married and became a Methodist preacher. He and a friend, Absalom Jones (who was himself the first black priest ordained in the Episcopal Church in America), founded the Free African Society, a nondenominational group that assisted fugitive slaves and migrants. In the same year, 1787, Allen and his wife Sarah began operating a station on the Underground Railroad for slaves, which they maintained until Allen died.

Tired of the white supervision and humiliation of his black congregation (Allen was only allowed to hold services at 5 a.m. or in a common field near the church) in 1797, Allen negotiated to buy a parcel of land on Sixth Street near Lombard in Philadelphia upon which to build a church, but the building was not erected for years. Remarkably, the land still belongs to the church Allen founded and is the oldest piece of real estate in the USA owned continuously by African Americans.

Even though he was ordained as the first black Bishop of the Methodist church in 1799, Allen was subject to often demeaning oversight by the white elders (only whites could distribute communion, for example). In 1816, Allen joined together five African American congregations in the Northeast to form the independent African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). The other ministers promptly elected him Bishop of the new denomination. The AME is the oldest and largest formal black institution in America.

Interestingly, the Episcopal Church in the USA honors Allen with a feast day (March 26), a street in Cambridge, Massachusetts bears his name, and the US Postal Service printed a stamp with the portrait you see below, in 2016, as part of the ongoing Black Heritage Series. Also in 2016, in West Philadelphia, at 38th and Market Streets, a mural called “The Legacy of Bishop Richard Allen and AME Church Mural” was unveiled. Today, at the church at Sixth and Lombard, (Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal) you can visit Allen’s grave in the lower level, and witness the high esteem in which he is still held when you view the life-sized statue of Allen erected at the church, in the banner year of 2016.