Malan, Henri Abraham Caesar, was born in Geneva in 1787. He was a precocious child and a man of genius. In 1810 he was consecrated to the ministry, and was appointed to preach in the cathedral at Geneva that Calvin had formerly occupied. This influential Presbytery had become rationalistic and Socinian. Malan was led to see its errors, became orthodox in faith and experience, and in 1818 was in consequence dismissed from the Established Church. He continued to preach, write, and labor with great zeal and success until his death, in 1864. Dr. Malan was a composer of music as well as a hymn writer. Three of his tunes are found in the Hymnal.

It is not death to die 585