Authorship and Origins
The original authorship of the poem is disputed, with dozens of people claiming to have penned it. Rachel Aviv in a Poetry Foundation article discusses the various claims and suggests that the source of this poem is the opening paragraph of Charles Haddon Spurgeon's 1880 sermon "The Education of the Sons of God."
June Hadden Hobbs suggested that its origins lie in Mary B. C. Slade's 1871 hymn "Footsteps of Jesus" as "almost surely the source of the notion that Jesus' footprints have narrative significance that influences the way believers conduct their life stories ... it allows Jesus and a believer to inhabit the same space at the same time. Jesus travels the path of the believer, instead of the other way round".
Margaret Fishback (Antolini), whose light verse appeared regularly in popular American magazines from the 1930s to the 1960s, had no connection to "Footprints," although her name confusingly resembles that of one claimed author.
Read more about this topic: Footprints (poem)
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