During the last three decades of the 19th century, Ira D. Sankey partnered Dwight Moody in a series of religious revivalist campaigns, mainly in North America and Europe. Moody preached, Sankey sang; as part of his musical ministry, Sankey collected hymns and songs, and in 1873 published in England the original edition of Sacred Songs and Solos, a short collection of 24 pages containing some of the favourite hymns that Sankey had introduced during the first Moody and Sankey evangelistic tour of Britain, in 1873–1875. Over the following years new, expanded editions of Sacred Songs were produced, containing many standard hymns as well as revivalist songs, the final edition from the 1900s containing 1,200 pieces. Sankey wrote the words for very few of these, but he composed and/or arranged ne