Jesus Loves Me -- Anna Bartlett Warner

So easy that a child could understand it? How about an army cadet? Maybe someone asked Anna Bartlett Warner those questions in 1860 when the subject of her poem “Jesus Loves Me” came up in conversation, for she and her sister Susan had encountered and tried to teach both children and military men in their life on Constitution Island in Highland Falls, New York (see a picture here of the island). They spent a good deal of time teaching the bible to army cadets at West Point, but they also wrote works intended for children, the apparent motivating factor in what they both did to bring life to this title phrase that is so elemental to Christian faith. It’s so simple a child could grasp it, but not too juvenile for young men in uniform to hold fast to it, too.    

Anna Warner was 33 years old by the time “Jesus Loves Me” appeared in print, perhaps one of the highlights of the Warner sisters’ efforts spanning several decades in southeastern New York state. Perhaps decades earlier, when both of them were children living in New York City with their wealthy attorney-father, they could not have imagined the life they would eventually pursue out of need. The collapse and loss of most of their family’s treasure in 1837 ushered in radical changes for the Warners, including a move to the island that sits adjacent to the U.S. Military Academy. An uncle had been the academy’s chaplain, a connection that probably gave the sisters an entrance to bible instruction for the young men attending there. But, making financial ends meet was also necessary, thus spurring Anna and Susan to write as their chief means of provision. The two objectives – teaching bible and making a living –at least occasionally intersected, including when ‘Jesus Loves Me’ was penned. Say and Seal was a novel, with an episode relating a Sunday school teacher’s attempts to console a child who is facing death, that Susan had in work. The poem that Anna wrote was this fictious character’s solution for the angst-ridden child whose departure is certain. Yes, death may be sure, but Anna’s poetry makes other facts about life and death abundantly clear, thus transmitting courage to a fearful child – and the rest of us, too -- about to enter the unseen. An unshakeable truth emerges from Anna’s heart via her pen. The God-Son who died and arose loves me, and has paved the way for me to join Him. Is anything more consequential at the end than this knowledge? Was it just a child’s perspective that Anna and Susan had in mind with this, or could the gravity of life, and what might await of group of army cadets in their pursuits, also have been at work in the mid-19^th Century? We’re all children, particularly when death approaches with a brutal, numbing certainty.

How does anyone face death with composure? A minister at my mother’s wake reminded us that death is an ‘appointment’, one that none of us can miss. The Warner poetry acknowledges this as well, that life’s end has an unavoidable poignancy. But, Anna says, that’s not all. That’s not even a wisp compared to what He says to me. Perhaps that’s why William Bradbury (he wrote the chorus to Anna’s poem) has us vocalize those three words repeatedly and innocently, yet boldly. It’s not something I need to gloat about, but it is reassuring. If you still have no peace when you think of the end, you need this. No one needs to miss this.

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; 101 Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.

Also see this link, showing all four original verses and a brief account of the song’s development: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/j/e/s/u/jesuslme.htm

Also see here for song information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Loves_Me

Also see this site author information: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/w/a/r/n/warner_ab.htm

Here also for biography of author/composer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Bartlett_Warner

Go Tell It On the Mountain -- John Wesley Work, Jr.

This song’s familiar refrain must have been in his ears for a number of years, before he decided to add some verses to complete the Christmas-time theme. John Wesley Work, Jr. was probably in or near his Nashville, Tennessee home, perhaps with his wife Agnes and his brother Frederick in close proximity, when he penned the words with the refrain’s title theme “Go Tell It On the Mountain” as a song that would be published by 1907. He also must have had in mind a group with whom worked at the university  where he taught when the words came to John, because they could help spread the sound of this song, an objective that seemed to fit perfectly with the song’s message. Who had invented the original words of this old spiritual ‘Go Tell It…’ is a mystery that will await us in another time.

Work may also have been near or at Fisk University in Nashville when he contemplated penning the words to ‘Go Tell It…’ in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Fisk was where he spent a great deal of time, after all, as a student of Latin and history and subsequently as a professor of  the same subjects (other sources alternately indicate he taught Greek). He also directed the Fisk Jubilee Singers and toured with them annually, a forum that gave his musical creations voice. In a similar vein, John also apparently directed a church chorus. John and Frederick and Agnes, as well as others the Works encountered, made it their mission to collect and keep alive the negro spiritual music that they’d heard for decades in the Appalachian region, such that the Work brothers eventually published two collections in 1901 and 1907, the second of which included ‘Go Tell It…’. The verses that John added to the well-known chorus expanded on the thoughts that the anonymous originator had crafted, relating the Christmas story’s scenes from the perspective of the shepherds. These shepherds saw, heard, and then visited the God-inspired events in the fields and at His birthplace, Work reminds us. John and Agnes may have had at least some of their six children by the time, perhaps during one of their family’s Christmas celebrations, that John decided to complement the negro spiritual he’d heard for so long with his three verses. Were his wife and children some of the first to hear this Christmas poetry? It’s likely that the church chorus, which included some of the Fisk singers, also had ears for John’s invention. The song quite plausibly made its way into the hills and valleys of the region as the group conducted one of its annual singing trips before it was actually in print.  

‘Go Tell It On the Mountain’ was something that John must have heard or said himself thousands of times, perhaps on occasion pondering its creator and his or her story. John and his family were at least one generation removed from the one who actually first sang the original words, someone who might have been enslaved, yet found a reason to shout joyfully. Like many of the spirituals of the period, which emerged from people whom logic might say should be complaining, ‘Go Tell It…’ refocuses one’s life upon the miraculous instead. Is life unfair, even miserable? That’s what a slave might have more logically vocalized. Perhaps John had re-discovered that logic has nothing to do with Him and His appearance.    

   

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; and Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990.

See brief biography on the composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Work_Jr.

And here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/w/o/r/work_jwj.htm

Also see this link, showing all three original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/g/o/t/gotitotm.htm

A brief history of the song is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Tell_It_on_the_Mountain_(song)

Battle Hymn of the Republic -- Julia Ward Howe

Passion. If ever there was a hymn attached to one emotion, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” could probably meet that standard. Julia Ward Howe knew this too when she considered writing her verses (eventually six), because the U.S. Civil War was in full view, and no one at the time had a neutral perspective on its merits or the desired outcome. It was late 1861, and Julia and some travelling companions to observe Union troops near Washington heard something that was the spark for what she would write in the middle of the night, as the scenes and the sounds that she’d witnessed and the broader vision of God’s purpose among humanity coalesced in her mind. (The scene here is a depiction of the Antietam battle, which was the most passionate, bloody one day [September 17, 1862] of the war.) Do the song’s words and tune stir you as you hear it today? It’s no accident, as the background and the continuing use of this great hymn since its inception have added to the underlying meaning it has for us.

The Battle Hymn’s predecessor tunes and the way the words have been used since Julia Howe wrote them have a rich history that expose fissures and conflicts in American history, far beyond this blogger’s ability to describe. So, I have only a few signposts to underscore, and a very fine book (see it referenced below in the notes section) by two scholars and co-writers John Stauffer and Benjamin Soskis to recommend that tell the story of this hymn completely. Here’s some key words you’ll bump into as you read, regarding other tunes that preceded Julia’s composition: “Oh Brothers”, and “John Brown’s Body”. Especially the latter possesses a fanaticism about the social order that helped push the nation into war. The other was a folk tune used in religious camp meetings. Julia was attempting to add a respectability to the hymn with better words for Union troops, but that hasn’t meant the feelings surrounding the social issues in the Civil War and the episodes for over 100 years since that time have been coolly debated. She must have sensed that too, with words about seeing the ‘glory of the Lord’, a‘terrible swift sword’, and ‘fateful lightning’, all in just verse 1 (!), that throw fuel upon the flame of emotions for those who employ this song. Many socio-cultural, political, racial, and other themes (including mobilization for war in the 21^st Century, as in Julia’s 19^th Century) have played out with the Battle Hymn engineered to whatever purpose the spearheads of these movements have sought to further. 

Enough said from this corner…   

   

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; 101 Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982; Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003; and A Treasury of Hymn Stories – Brief Biographies of 120 Hymnwriters with Their Best Hymns, by Amos R. Wells, Baker Book House Company, 1945.

Also, see the very extensive history of the song in the book The Battle Hymn of the Republic --  A Biography of the Song that Marches On, by John Stauffer and Benjamin Soskis, Oxford University Press, 2013.

Also see this link, showing all six original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/b/a/t/batthymn.htm

Also see this site for song information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Hymn_of_the_Republic