Philip Bliss and “I Will Sing of My Redeemer”: His Life, Death, and Gospel

I’d like to read with you two passages tonight. The first is in the book of Job, chapter 19 — that’s page 800 for those using the Bibles from the table at the back — Job chapter 19, verse 25. You sang this title seven times in the hymn we just sang, composed by Philip Bliss, the man we’re thinking about tonight. Notice the title:

For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God,

Job 19:25-26

One more reading, in the New Testament — page 1855, 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 18:

Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,

1 Peter 1:18

The handout I have tonight is very text-intensive, and it’s fairly detailed about the last days of Philip and Lucy Bliss. So in my opening comments, I want to give you some idea of what the man was like, and the impact he had in his day — an impact that lives on, obviously, in the hymns we’re still using today, being sung all around the world.

A Man Whose Words We Still Sing

In the short span of twelve years, from 1864 to 1876, Philip Bliss wrote a number of hymns that have become indispensable to gospel work. Here are the titles of just a handful of them — notice how much we still use his thoughts and his words as we preach the gospel. He wrote “Man of Sorrows.” He wrote “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning.” He wrote “Free from the Law, Oh, Happy Condition.” “The Light of the World Is Jesus.” “I Am So Glad That Jesus Loves Me.” “Sing Them Over Again to Me” — “Wonderful Words of Life.” “Look to Jesus, Weary One, Look and Live.” “Hold the Fort.” “Almost Persuaded.” “I Will Sing of My Redeemer” — the song you just sang. “Whosoever Will May Come.” “Hallelujah, ‘Tis Done.” “Dare to Be a Daniel.” On top of that, he wrote the music for a number of well-known hymns, among them “I Gave My Life for Thee,” and he wrote the tune we use for “It Is Well with My Soul.” He was an abundantly gifted man.

Hymns Born from a Casual Remark

Bliss seemed to have a penchant for writing hymns inspired by a casual remark. Hearing Moody tell the story of a shipwreck caused by a fault in the lighthouse, he came up with the hymn “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning.” He heard a message on John 3:16 and wrote the hymn “Whosoever Will.”

When Bliss was singing for Moody in Chicago, a great industrial exhibition was being held there, and one of the central attractions was a grand fountain. It became a rallying point for people attending the show — people in Chicago would say to someone, “I’ll meet you at the fountain,” and the other would say, “Well, that’s easy to find, I’ll see you there.” Bliss was struck by the words, and very soon they became the basis for a touching gospel song he wrote, “Will You Meet Me at the Fountain?”

He heard people singing the chorus “Oh, How I Love Jesus,” and he thought, I’ve sung long enough about my poor love for Christ — now I’m going to sing about His love for me. And so he wrote, “I Am So Glad That Jesus Loves Me.” Once, when he wanted to use the well-known hymn “Hallelujah, Thine the Glory,” the owners of the copyright declined his application, so he wrote and used one of his own, “Hallelujah, ‘Tis Done” — I believe on the Son.

He heard a preacher named Mr. Brundage close a message with these words: he who is almost persuaded is almost saved, but to be almost saved is to be entirely lost. He was so impressed with that thought that he immediately composed the hymn “Almost Persuaded,” in May of 1870.

“Hold the Fort”: A Signal from the Mountaintop

Bliss accompanied Moody’s friend, Major D.W. Whittle, to a Sunday school convention at Rockford, Illinois. There, Whittle, a major and a conference speaker, related an incident from the Civil War. Just before General Sherman began his March to the Sea, about twenty miles north of Marietta and Atlanta, Confederate troops cut Sherman’s communication lines along the railroad at Allatoona Pass — the site of a huge fortification of Union supplies and rations. It was extremely important that the earthworks commanding the pass, and protecting the supplies, be held.

Confederate forces surrounded the works, and vigorous fighting ensued. The battle seemed lost, the cause hopeless to the Union soldiers. But at that moment, an officer caught sight of a signal flag far away across the valley, twenty miles away, on top of Kennesaw Mountain. The signal was answered, and soon the message was waved from mountain to mountain: Hold the fort — I am coming. W.T. Sherman. Reinforcements were coming. The song was instantly born in the mind of Bliss:

Hold the fort, for I am coming, Jesus signals still; wave the answer back to heaven, “By Thy grace we will.”

Now, in the interest of honesty — the expression “hold the fort” was actually never used. Three messages were sent: one saying “hold out,” another “hold fast,” another “hold on.” Whittle’s story was in essence correct. When he reached Chicago, Bliss wrote the music. It was published first as sheet music, and it brought immense popularity to the author — it actually made the expression “hold the fort” a widely used colloquial phrase.

A Letter to His Mother

His love for souls can be seen in a letter he wrote to his mother about gospel meetings he was having, telling her about the conversion of someone they both knew. He said:

“Hallelujah, there is joy in heaven! If all the meetings had been carried on and only this one result, how richly paid I would have been. Yet many souls just as precious have been saved. We believe — oh, how good God has been, and how precious Jesus is today. It is an answer to your prayers of years ago, and to the prayers of him who now dwells in the glory land” — that was his father — “that God has chosen me. Not a day, hardly a meeting, passes but I think, ‘Can it be that God has chosen me to be an instrument, a vessel, in which to carry the water of life to perishing souls?’ Oh, pray daily, mother, that I may be a vessel sanctified and meet for the Master’s use.”

Major Whittle wrote that the last words he knew Bliss had written were two pieces, “My Redeemer” and “I Passed the Cross of Calvary.” Nothing he ever wrote made him happier. Whittle said,

“I could see him now, as he came into my room in Peoria and stood by my table with the words of the piece written in pencil, and I can hear his earnest voice as he read the verses and called my attention to what it said. The tears filled his eyes as he stood for a moment and spoke of the risen Christ, the victory over sin and over the flesh that faith in Him gives to the believer, and he said, ‘Now, if the Lord will give me a tune for this, I believe it will be used to bring souls to Christ.’”

The Ashtabula Train Disaster and the Hymn Found After His Death

During the Christmas holiday of 1876, Philip and Lucy Bliss visited his mother in Pennsylvania, on December 28th, leaving their children in the care of Mrs. Bliss’s sister. Philip and Lucy checked their luggage through to Chicago and boarded the train at Waverly, New York. When an engine broke down, they spent the night in a hotel, then continued their journey the next day.

In a blinding snowstorm, whipped by forty-mile-an-hour winds, the Pacific Express train left Buffalo, New York, on Friday afternoon, December 29th. About eight o’clock that evening, as the train crossed a ravine, the wooden trestle collapsed. The cars, packed with holiday passengers, plunged seventy-five feet into the icy river and caught fire. More than a hundred people perished in the wreck.

As I noted in your handout, Bliss survived the fall of the train and escaped through a window, but frantically returned to the wreckage in an attempt to rescue his wife. She was pinned; he could not release her, and as a result he died with her in that fire. Neither body was ever recovered. Lucy Bliss was thirty-five; Philip was thirty-eight. The night before his death, he had sung a hymn, “I’m Going Home Tomorrow.”

Remarkably, Philip’s luggage had been placed on another train and arrived safely in Chicago. Inside, his friends found one last hymn — and you sang that one last hymn tonight: “I will sing of my Redeemer, and His wondrous love to me; on the cruel cross He suffered, from the curse to set me free.”

D.L. Moody said about Bliss:

“I loved and admired him. I believed he was raised up of God to write hymns for the church of God in this age, as Charles Wesley was for the church in his day. In my estimate, he was the most highly honored of God of any man at this time as a writer and singer of gospel songs, and with all his gift he was the most humble man I ever knew. I loved him as a brother, and shall cherish his memory.”

The remains retrieved from the Ashtabula disaster were placed in a common grave, marked by a cenotaph in Ashtabula Cemetery. A cenotaph in memory of the Blisses was also erected in the cemetery at Rome, Pennsylvania, on July 17, 1877. But on the resurrection morning, from that unmarked grave, Philip and Lucy will rise to meet the Lord in the air, and in a glorified body be reunited with their Redeemer.

The Sermon: What Makes a Redeemer Wondrous

I asked my brother to give out that hymn before I got up, because I wanted those to be the last words you sang before I spoke to you. I want to ask you to think with me tonight about words.

We all deal with the same nouns. We all have the same nouns — podium, mic, chair. What makes nouns come alive are adjectives: a sturdy podium, a powerful mic, a comfortable chair. So I want you to think with me tonight about the sparkling adjectives that Philip Bliss employed in his final hymn, “I Will Sing of My Redeemer.”

The Gospel’s Wondrous Story

“The gospel’s wondrous story” — that’s how he described the message you’re hearing tonight. He said, “I will tell the wondrous story.” It comes from the greatest source. It’s one of the highest privileges of my life to be able to tell you the gospel of God, because it comes from God Himself. It is called the gospel of God because it is His message — a message from the heart of God to lost men and women on this poor, tear-filled, dying, cursed planet. Here is a message that has come from your Creator down to you, to tell you how you can get to know Him, how you can become right with Him, and how you can be assured of living with Him forever. It conveys His word to you in the gospel.

God exposes the deep need each of us has to be saved. It is what Bliss referred to as “my lost estate” — that is, my condition as a person who is lost. You’ll remember that Israel is recorded in the Old Testament as saying that God remembered them in their low estate — their low estate, when they were being beaten, when they were dying, when they were in bondage, when they were doomed — but God remembered them in their low estate.

Now Bliss talked about us as men and women in our lost estate, because we’re on the wrong road. We come into this world on the wrong road — the human family was hijacked in the Garden of Eden, and we’re all heading in the wrong direction until we turn around, until we turn to God. We’re cut off from light and life and joy — true joy. We are already condemned, says the Lord Jesus, and we’re facing an eternity of loss. All of that is involved in what Bliss wrote, and what you sang about, “my lost condition.”

But this message conveys God’s wish for you — His heart’s wish. Do you know what God wishes for you? God wants you to be saved. God wants you to have eternal life. God wants you to have life that is really living — not merely existing, making your way through the world with an occasional flare of joy or happiness, but what the Bible calls abundant life — real life, everlasting life, eternal life. This is His wish for you.

A Lost Bible, and the Joy of Being Found

Years ago, we had just one child at the time. After a gospel meeting, I had driven about sixty miles from home — my wife, our young son, and I — in a small car. We came out from what was called the Longport Gospel Hall, and my car was parked right in front. I had my son in one hand and my Bible in a bag in the other, and I needed to get something out of the trunk. So I put my Bible on the bumper, popped the trunk, got something out, handed it to my wife, went around, got my son in his car seat, and we took off.

About sixty miles later, when I pulled into my driveway and reached into the back for my Bible, a mental image flashed across my mind — I actually saw myself place my Bible on the bumper. But there was no mental image of taking it off the bumper.

The next morning — Monday, if I remember correctly — my son was in preschool, so my wife took me back down. Now, I don’t know if you use the term here, but a “nor’easter” is a storm whose winds circle around toward the northeast. It was a brutal nor’easter hitting the Jersey Shore. The rain was coming down in sheets. We came right down to the Longport Gospel Hall. I put on a jacket with a hood, got out, and looked around — soaked in a moment’s time. My wife followed slowly in the car as I tracked the road we’d taken home, searching along the side of the road for about a couple of miles, until we got to the bridge. And then I gave up. That was it. That was October of 1980.

January of 1981 — I was back in Canada, in Nova Scotia. My wife called and said, “Guess what came in the mail today.” I said, “What?” “Your Bible.” Now, that was October; this was January. She said it was mailed from Ocean City — I had lost it in Longport, and Ocean City is the neighboring town, a few miles away. There was a note with it. The gentleman wrote that he had gone down to close up his shore house, found this bag sitting on a snowdrift on his porch, opened it up, saw a Bible with a name and address inside, saw there were notations in it, and thought, this must be very valuable to this person, so he shipped it back.

I expressed my gratitude to him with a gift card for his kindness. But could you try to understand the joy it was to me, when I got home from Nova Scotia and took that book in my hand — it was my Bible, my notebook, my messages, all of it — and there they were, dry, having come through a nor’easter, through snowstorms, traveled twenty miles away, three months later — and there it is. Joy. It was lost; now it was found.

That’s what the Lord Jesus uses as a picture to tell you how God feels, what God enjoys — that when a sinner turns from her sin, when a sinner turns from his sin, when that person turns to Christ, God’s heart is filled with joy, because another human being has been rescued from the terrible catastrophe of sin. That’s God’s wish. That’s what this message is conveying — it’s telling us what God wishes for us. And along with that, it conveys a warning to us, because God doesn’t want us to go blindly on into the future not knowing what the issues are. He wants us to understand what is at stake, so that we’ll be informed enough to make wise choices. So He tells us about wrath that’s coming. He tells us about judgment that’s coming. He tells us that sin is deadly. He posts warnings throughout His book, so that men and women will see them and realize that the thing I think is small and insignificant is lethal and deadly, and I need to be saved from it. And so God has put warnings in His word.

Why God Gives Us Warnings

The High-Voltage Fence

There was a young man who, along with his friend, came across an enclosure in the woods — a fence, with barbed wire on top, that you weren’t going to get into very easily. There were signs on it that said: KEEP OUT. DANGER. HIGH VOLTAGE.

Somehow those two young men got over that fence. I don’t know why you would want to do this, but that’s what they did — they got over the fence, got on top of the substation. It wasn’t a very tall building. Somehow they got up onto the roof — I have no idea what they were doing up there — but Tom, near the edge of the roof, lost his balance and began to fall.

He would have been far better off just falling, but instinctively, I guess, he put out his hand — he was still standing on the roof — and he grabbed the wire. Had he grabbed it with his left hand, it would have killed him immediately, because it would have hit his heart. He grabbed it with his right hand, and — pardon me if this sounds crude, I want to convey to you what actually happened — the electricity drilled its way through his body: through his hand, down his arm, down his side, down his leg, and blew itself out of his foot. When I went to visit him, he was fighting for his life in a Boston hospital.

Do you think the utility company posted those signs because they wanted to invite people in to be harmed? No — of course that’s ludicrous. The whole idea behind the signs was to alert people to the danger so that they would stay out. Now, when you come to the Bible and read warnings from God, the whole purpose of them is that you would turn from the thing that’s going to kill you, and turn to the Saviour who loves you.

The Saviour Who Came to Seek You

So no wonder Philip Bliss talked about “the wondrous story” — because it comes from the greatest source, God, but it presents the greatest person, Christ. The Lord Jesus came into this world to seek you. That’s what He says. The distance He traveled cannot be measured in light-years or miles, but in the moral and spiritual realm. He came from another world into our world. He came from a throne to be born in a feeding trough — the only person in all of history who could choose exactly where He would be born, exactly what level of society He would enter our world through — and He chose a poor couple, a manger, and a home in Nazareth, a despised village. He came to seek those who are lost. He came from a world where He was honored into a world of tears and suffering, taking part in all of our griefs, to save you. He came and died to save you.

Why Jesus Had to Become Human — Forever

As costly as His coming here was — and I wish I had the time, but I’m going to take a few moments to explain — I remember, as a young teenager, when it dawned on me that my Saviour, in order to be able to save me, had to become a human being forever.

I was familiar with literature from ancient cultures — we all know the picture of the warrior who didn’t want to frighten his child, so he put on normal clothes, and the child ran to his dad instead of being frightened by the spear, sword, and shield. We hear stories of the “prince and the pauper” type, where some great, noble figure will don the appearance of a commoner and move in and out among his people, and they won’t realize this noble person is among them. But you see, in all of those stories — even in the mythological tales from Greece and Rome — there comes a point where the supposed god or noble person takes off the robes of the commoner and goes back to being what he was.

The Lord Jesus didn’t put on humanity like I put this jacket on tonight, only to take it off when He went back to heaven. In order to save me, He had to be willing to become a human being forever. I wish that could really sink in for you, to realize what it cost Him just to come. But then it goes far beyond that, because as costly as that was, it was only the prelude to His ultimate sacrifice at Calvary, to pay for your sins.

He Couldn’t Save Himself and Save You

They stood around the cross and said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save.” Yes, He had saved others. Yes, He could have saved Himself, as far as having the capability of doing it — but He couldn’t save Himself and save you. He couldn’t save Himself and save you, because He was the only one who could die for our sins.

Did you notice the story — it was August, I think, I noted it — a man and his wife in Australia were walking together alongside a river. The only explanation authorities have is that people, foolishly, tourists included, had thrown scraps of food into the river — otherwise they believe this could never have happened at that spot. They were standing there, looking down into the river, when the ground gave way underneath their feet and they slid into the water. A crocodile got hold of the man and began pulling him deeper. You know about their death roll — how they’ll take a body and drown it, shove it under a log or stone, and come back later to feast.

This man was being pulled away from the shore, and his wife put her hand out, trying to pull him back. The crocodile pulling one way, the wife pulling the other — and then she began to slip; she was about to be pulled into the water too. So he did the only thing he could do: he looked deep into her eyes, and let go. She watched him, pulled away, pulled down, helplessly watching him. He couldn’t save her. He couldn’t even save himself. So he gave himself, so that she wouldn’t die.

Here’s something that exceeds even that: the Lord Jesus could have come down from that cross, and did not. Why? Because you and I needed a Redeemer — we needed someone who was sinless, someone of such infinite value that the shedding of His blood would be a sufficient ransom payment to redeem us. And Jesus Christ was the only one. And now He lives to bless you. He’s a loving Shepherd. He’ll guard you and guide you and protect you and bless you every day of your life, if you will trust Him.

His Triumphant Power

No wonder Bliss said this is a wondrous message, because it offers the greatest blessing of all: salvation. That broken link is restored — the link with God that began at creation and was severed by sin. When a person trusts Christ, that person is reconciled to God; the link is formed again. That’s what salvation does. A lost life is recovered. It’s called regeneration. It’s called being born again. A person is given new life — and that’s why you sang tonight, in Bliss’s words, “He from death to life hath brought me, Son of God with Him to be.” What once would have been bitter and eternal loss is revoked as a sinner is rescued and saved and delivered — no longer doomed.

I remember — it’s getting harder to remember certain things, but as long as memory is on its throne and sanity is still ruling in some measure in my mind, I don’t think I’ll long forget what it was like lying in bed at about eleven o’clock, on the night that God saved me, and the thought kept coming over and over in my mind: this means you’re never going to be in hell. You’re never going to be in hell. You’re saved. Christ has saved you. You’ll never have to go through this again. If He comes, you’ll go with Him. If you die, you’ll be with Him. You’ll never be in hell — all because of that Redeemer. I wish you knew Him tonight. I wish you knew Him tonight.

That’s the wondrous story. Then he talked about the Saviour’s power — but he said “His triumphant power.” I’ll tell you — the Lord Jesus triumphed over death. He rose again. More than five hundred people, at different times, saw and heard the risen Christ — not a weak, emaciated figure who had hobbled out of the grave, barely able to speak, but a vibrant, living, powerful, victorious Christ, who had shattered the bands of death, who had risen from the dead just as He said He would.

He’s gone back to heaven, and Christ is coming again. Christians live in this world of uncertainty, but Christians live with the assurance that any day we might look at Him — any day He might come, any day we may hear Him call us. He’s going to resurrect His own and catch us up to be with Him. Then He’s going to come back eventually to reign with all of His own, and unlike other kings, this King of Kings will share His throne with all of His beloved people, and He will reign forever and forever. We want you to know Him, and we want you to experience that triumphant power that will deliver you from your sins and bring new life to you.

Boundless, Heavenly, Wondrous Love

But Philip Bliss saved most of his adjectives to describe the Saviour’s love. You sang all of them — he called it “boundless love,” he called it “heavenly love,” he called it “wondrous love.”

Earthly Love Has Its Limits

It’s heavenly love because earthly love has its limitations — which is why Romans chapter 5, which we read last night, contains these words: “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.” Earthly love has its limitations. I don’t think you would die for somebody a thousand miles away that you’d never met, saying, “I will give my life so that she can continue living.” Scarcely for a righteous man will one die — perhaps there’s someone you admire something about, and you might be led to put your life on the line for them, because there’s something admirable about them. But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still — while we were neither righteous nor admirable, while we were yet sinners — Christ died for us. That’s what God’s love is like.

Our love is based on things like relationships — no mother or father has to be taught to love a newborn baby; it comes naturally, because of relationship, because of proximity. That’s why, if you’re a dog owner and your dog dies, you might spend the whole day crying about your dog, and hardly think twice about a hundred people dying in a tsunami halfway around the world — because the dog is near to you, and they’re far away. Or someone shows you kindness again and again, and it elicits your appreciation, your love. Those are the kinds of things our love is based on.

God’s love is based on God. It’s not based on us. It’s not that God looks and sees something about you and says, “Now I really love her, I really love him.” No — God is love, and He has expressed that love to you in the giving of His Son. He has displayed that love at Calvary, and He wants you to be saved. It is heavenly love. It is wondrous love — to be wondered at, when you think what His love endured.

What His Love Endured

Think of what His love went through, and never faltered, never failed. Way back in the Old Testament, there’s a king named Solomon, and he put it this way — many waters cannot quench love, if it’s real. If it’s real, many waters can’t quench it. A person can go through a lot of difficulty, and the love will remain, if it’s true love.

Think of what His love went through. He was scourged. He was rejected. He was spat upon. He was mocked. He was beaten. He was thorn-crowned. He was crucified. He faced death itself, because He loves you. And none of that — none of that — ever caused Him to think or feel, “It’s too much, I shouldn’t have agreed to this.” The way the Bible puts it: for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, He despised the shame — He despised being despised, He thought it as nothing — so that He could provide salvation for you.

“I Know That My Redeemer Lives” — Revisited

Now you know why, centuries ago, this man Job, in what might be the Bible’s oldest book, says, “I know that my Redeemer lives” — up there, not down here. In Job’s day, he wasn’t saying there’s somebody, a neighbor of mine, who will be able to redeem me. “I know that my Redeemer lives. I know that in the latter day He’s going to stand on the earth,” and he goes on to say that if his body is destroyed by death and corruption, yet in his flesh he’s going to see God, his Redeemer.

Because you see, this is boundless love. Boundless love is not only unconditional — it is eternal. When Christ receives a helpless, guilty sinner, He never lets go of that person. His love is eternal, and He wants to pick you up tonight, like a shepherd would pick up a lost sheep, put you on His shoulders, and carry you through this world, and bring you safely home to heaven.

The Little Girl at the Toy Store Window

Let me close by telling you something about Philip and Lucy Bliss. It was right around Christmas time. They were shopping, picking up some presents to take home to their two sons, Paul and George. They were walking down a street where there were stores, and Mr. Bliss noticed a little girl — this was winter — basically clad in rags, standing in front of a toy store, looking in the window at all the dolls.

Mr. Bliss went over to her — now, this would be frightening in our day, but we’re going back quite a long way — he went over to her, along with his wife, and said to her, “Now, just pick out the one you want, and I will see to it that you get it.” He was going to buy it for her. “Just pick out the one you want, and I will buy it. I will see that you get it.”

She looked at him, grabbed her rags about her, and ran down the street. This is what he wrote: “I would have been delighted — in fact, it was already bought in my mind. I’d already had the thing all settled — whatever she picked, I was going to buy it. It was already bought in my mind, and I would have been delighted to buy it. But that child looked at me with an expression of distrust and unbelief, and she gathered her shawl over her head and hurried away. She did not listen to my repeated endeavors to win her confidence.” He tried to call her back.

He said, “That is just the way sinners treat Christ. That is just the way sinners treat Christ. I was really grieved that this little one would not let me do for her what I wanted to, and that she distrusted me when I just wished, with all my heart, to make her happy.” God wishes — I can go so far as to say, with all His heart — to bless you, to rescue you, to save you, to redeem you. That’s why His Son is the Redeemer who shed His blood. Don’t gather your clothes around you and run away like the little girl. Tonight there’s a loving Saviour who gave everything He had to make salvation possible for you.

It’s a Gift — Take It

Why don’t you take that gift tonight? The Bible says that what we deserve is death — the wages of sin is death — but it says the gift, the gift of God, is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. How do you take a gift? You just take it and say thanks. Take Christ tonight, and thank God. Take the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, and thank God that He loved you so much He died for you. And if you take Christ, you’ll have eternal life, because the person who has the Son of God has that life — he that believes on the Son has everlasting life.

Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for coming to the meetings, and for listening in the past two weeks. May God bless you. I hope I’ll meet every one of you in heaven.