The Ninety and Nine

Ira Sankey improvised the tune for Elizabeth Clephane's poem on the spot during a Moody-Sankey campaign in Edinburgh, after Moody had just preached on the parable of the lost sheep from Luke 15:3-7 ('Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them'). Sankey read the poem from a newspaper and composed the melody in the moment, making one of the most famous examples of divinely-inspired improvisation in gospel music history. The song expands the parable to include a long dramatic description of the shepherd searching mountain and stream, making it an extended meditation on Luke 15.