The headline of the December 1968 Evangelical Recorder’s front page perhaps tells it all: “Dr. Oswald J. Smith T’12, Alumnus of the Year, and celebrating 60 years of world missions, evangelism, preaching, pastoral ministry and writing. Here he is congratulated by Dr. Billy Graham ... .”

Oswald now has his own Wikipedia page that reports, “Over the course of 80 years, he preached more than 12,000 sermons in 80 countries; wrote 35 books (with translations into 128 languages); as well as 1,200 poems, of which 100 have been set to music, including "Deeper and Deeper" (first line "Into the heart of Jesus"),” according to Wikipedia.

As founder of the Peoples Church in Toronto and the Peoples Missionary Society, he was once hailed by one of Toronto's daily papers as “our Dr. Smith,” according to the Recorder.

At the 1968 ceremony everyone joined Dr. Oswald J. Smith in singing a hymn he wrote back in 1930: “There is joy in serving Jesus / As I journey on my way / Joy that fills my heart with gladness / Every hour of every day.”

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