He was a
preacher, traveling broadly in mid-19th Century America to spread
the ‘good news’, so writing hymns was a natural extension of this ministry,
another way of getting the message out. “There Is a Habitation” was Love
Humphreys Jameson’s storytelling about heaven to listeners in 1860, perhaps
another one of his evangelistic tools that he was using in his various travels.
Did he draw mental pictures of heaven’s pearly gates (shown here in this
masterpiece by Hans Memling in the late 15th Century) for his
hearers as he described this habitation? He would shortly become a respected
figure to soldiers engaged in a bitter war, probably as he told them about
eternity and coaxed their faith amid the horrors on the battlefields. Could it
be that his words about a certain place and its character resonated with those
of his generation who dreaded what was approaching just over the horizon
terrestrially? Check out the words about this ‘habitation’ he visualized, and
see what you think.
Love
Jameson put lots of miles on his body in his travels by 1860, as he busied
himself with the evangelism that Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell had used
to help ignite his own faith, which had been manifested in the numerous speaking
engagements over the previous 30 years. He’d listened to Campbell in the 1830s,
several years after committing himself to spreading the Word in Indiana, and
then was with the elder Stone on some of his trips during the latter years of
his life – all while Love was still a relatively young man in his 20s. Concurrently,
he was speaking himself regularly at several churches in Ohio, as well as in
Indiana, and through the 1840s and early 1850s he further found himself in
Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, and the New England area. Love hailed
from the Hoosier state, but must have felt at home in many places, given the
wide spaces to which he journeyed. He became a chaplain to an Indiana regiment when
the Civil War commenced, and was reportedly regarded as a mentor-father figure
by the troops of his home state. Could “There Is a Habitation” have been on his
mind as he considered the gathering war storm in 1860? ‘Nor wars, nor
desolations…’ (v. 2) and ‘angelic armies sing’ (v. 4), Love said with his pen.
Being a Union man, and a man of God, what were Jameson’s views of the war and
its ultimate aims? Did he consider it a holy venture, an endeavor to bring freedom
for all the nation’s people, when he wrote the words ‘There is a habitation…for
all of every nation…’ (v.1)? Sure, he was thinking of the heavenly habitation,
but could he have ignored the earthly dwelling he and his countrymen inhabited
as he witnessed the passionate debate of the opposing sides splitting his home
asunder here on earth? He longed for heaven’s harmony, perhaps as he considered
the intractable racist division in his country. Was there another circumstance that
could have captured his attention, as he traveled the Midwest and Northeast in
the 1850s?
Love
Jameson’s life might be succinctly summed up in some 150 hymns that he
reportedly wrote over his lifetime, but his gifts as an evangelist might make
that measuring stick far too short. He reached out pretty wide with his speaking
engagements during 50-plus years of ministry. If one could calculate how many
songs must have been sung during his various trips, 150 songs would surely have
been eclipsed after just a few months. He must have used many times that number
to influence the thousands, if not more, people that were within earshot of his
voice. Nevertheless, that’s a horizontal reckoning – between him and other
people. Love thought vertically, too, with this song, and wanted others to do
the same. I like my house and its many comforts. But, how’s it really compare to
what awaits? It doesn’t, does it?
See further information on the composer here: https://hymnary.org/person/Jameson_Love
This site has the song’s four verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/t/h/e/r/e/thereihab.htm
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