In the Land of Fadeless Day -- John R. Clements

This 32-year old would be prolific in more than one way in his faith expression, but he was probably just getting started, as one century neared its conclusion and another one was about to commence. John Ralston Clements made his home in the Binghampton, New York area, and may have spent much of his time in a classroom (perhaps similar to the one shown here – in what was known as Lestershire [now Johnson City], New York – sometime before 1923), or in a grocery store, but wherever he was, he probably had a song-poem in his head. He was Irish-born, but evidently adapted well to America as he pursued the faith he accepted as an 18-year old in his new country. It was 1899, and John had a counterpoint to darkness in a poem he called “No Night There” (also known as “In the Land of Fadeless Day”), perhaps one bit of mental imagery he tried to get his students to visualize.

It’s probably not too speculative to suggest that John Clements was heavily involved in the education of many students around the turn of the 18^th-19^th Century, and that this perhaps played a part in many of the poem-songs he wrote. His family had emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland when John was two years old, and later he worked in the grocery business as a young teenager and evidently into his adult years. He was the first president of what was known as the Practical Bible Training School – later to be renamed Davis College (after its founder, John Adelbert Davis), a position he held shortly before the turn of the century until 1914. So, John Clements was evidently fairly accomplished and recognized for his acumen by the time he was in his early 30s. The poetry he produced – he would reportedly write some 5,000 poem-songs over his lifetime – was one manifestation of his prodigious ability. He must have touched several hundred, if not thousands of students during his 17-year stint as the school’s president, too. Moreover, he certainly possessed a pretty strong conviction, based upon these two data points – his poetry and leadership of the school. You can sense it in the song he wrote also around this time. Notice the phrase ‘..the city foursquare’ that he uses repeatedly (it’s in all four verses he composed). Do you think John was describing the eternal city’s geometric shape, really? Or, was he more likely struck by ‘foursquare’ in the sense of this city’s firmness and certainty, based upon its founder? One can imagine that John evaluated his own life, and that of the school’s students, and concluded that their convictions should be forthright and strong, matching that of the city where they all wanted to live ultimately. Perhaps John communicated this attitude in the various roles he played, as school president, poet, and even as a grocer.

Conviction was one word that must have described John Clements. Meet life with a faith head-on. Don’t try to swerve too much, he might have said. John, like any of us, certainly knew of the valleys. He wrote about them in his song’s refrain – ‘tears…death…pain…fears’. But, he juxtaposes them against the stunning scenery of the city he saw in his mind. That’s where his faith found its foundation. If your houses creaks, like mine, it’s natural sometimes to wonder if there’s a structural problem. Probably smart to maybe have it checked out by an expert, huh? How’s your foundation doing? Maybe that’s not too far off from a question John Clements might have asked himself.        

See here for brief biography of the author: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/l/e/clements_jr.htm

See here for all four verses of the song: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/n/n/i/nnighthr.htm

Also, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Clements

See link here re: the school the author started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_College_(New_York)