William L. Watkinson

William Lonsdale Watkinson was an English Wesleyan Methodist minister, editor and prolific author of sermons and devotional essays. His 1907 collection The Supreme Conquest and Other Sermons Preached in America contains the earliest located version of the candle saying — though Watkinson himself presented it as a familiar figure of speech, so even his authorship is only tentative. He is the person Quote Investigator credits with the earliest documented instance, not the coiner of the polished modern motto.