Purer Yet and Purer -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Anne R. Bennett

 

He wanted to be better than he was. Though Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was saying it in a different language (Anne Bennett would later translate his German into English), he was essentially saying ‘I’m not as good at this life as I want to be’. “Purer Yet and Purer” was only one part of eight ways in which Johann Goethe sought to express how he wanted to improve. Goethe was multitalented, which says that even the accomplished person might feel something is missing in all the various pursuits of his life. Sadly, Johann did not seem to cling without reserve to the God that Christians know, yet he said something in his poem about striving progressively as a human creation of the Divine One that spoke to those who came after him, including Anne Bennett.

 

Does it really matter that the year and the circumstances of Goethe’s poetry are not crystal clear? Poetry was but one facet of this 18^th/19^th Century German literary figure, regarded by many as a giant of his era, perhaps because of the various interests in which he engaged. He was trained in the legal profession, yet ultimately pursued poetry and other related literary interests – novels, plays, and art -- and then various scientific fields like botany, anatomy, and color, besides being involved in statecraft and politics. Perhaps it was early in his life, when he still was studying and then practicing law (late 1760s-early 1770s), and when the young Goethe reportedly wrote much of his early poetry, that he penned ‘Purer Yet and Purer’. Goethe was said to be a ‘freethinker’, meaning that he believed in parts of the Christian faith, yet was critical of church practices and even disliked the cross and its symbolism. God, for him, was more than what the Lutherans had conveyed during his childhood, and Goethe instead gravitated toward Spinozan thought – God’s attributes were evident in thought and matter, and God is a self-reliant substance. One can see how Goethe might have been seeking this God in all the variety of his life’s interests. In his poetry, it wasn’t just purity in his mind (v.1) that Johann sought, but seven other personal goals that he wanted to attain. ‘Dearer’(v.1)  – more devoted, perhaps -- he wanted to be in all he did. He wanted to be ‘calmer’ and ‘surer’ (v.2) in times of suffering, and ultimately trusting joyfully in God. Was Goethe anticipating or actually going through a more advanced stage of life when he wrote that he aspired to rise ‘higher’ and ‘nearer’ (v.3) toward something, and to run the race of life ‘swifter’ and feel ‘firmer’ (v.4) on his path toward a goal? How many of these expressions of Goethe echoed also in the spirit of the translator Anne Bennett by the mid-19^th Century, when the Goethe’s poem was first published in English?

 

Goethe was not a model Christian believer. And, he wasn’t a perfectly tuned human, despite all the acclaim he garnered by the end of his life; notably, he failed at the legal profession, the choice of profession he made early in his life. In the same period, he also experienced severe illness as a young man. Later, Goethe fathered one son out of wedlock, before marrying his mistress and fathering two other children. And, some of the works Goethe penned would be characterized as bawdy, and pushed the boundaries of social etiquette for his time, not to mention Christian values. All this says even someone as brilliant as Goethe has warts. And yet, he did say something in this one poem, something that is true for everyone. I fall short of my Creator. I can see Him off in the distance. And, I want and need Him to be closer every day that I get older. Is He getting closer for you?

 

 

See all the verses and some very brief information on the hymn here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/p/u/r/e/pureryet.htm

 

See information on the author here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe

Sweet By and By -- Sanford Fillmore Bennett

He was 31 years old and owned a drugstore in Elkhorn, Wisconsin (see map here), and one day he filled a prescription that was perhaps the fastest and most unusual remedy for someone that he’d ever written. Sanford Bennett wasn’t even the first one to utter the phrase ‘by and by’, but when he added ‘Sweet’ in front of it, he felt it was a winner. It was a flash of brilliance that he received, Bennett would probably say, if he were here to respond. Those on the scene that day in Sanford’s apothecary also thought the hymn, concocted on the spot, was one that would endure. One depressed friend, who knew to whom he could go for help, and a friend who replied – that’s all it took for “The Sweet By and By” to enter hymnody’s record in 1868.

These two friends, Sanford Fillmore Bennett and Joseph Philbrick Webster, were apparently so well in tune with one another, that no words between the two were necessary for each to interpret the other’s mood. Each had a talent that the other accessed and augmented with his own. Sanford had been a poet for many years prior to the 1868 encounter in the drugstore, so he was no doubt accustomed to sparks of creativity. The 40-year old Joseph was a local musician, likewise with a long record of musical accomplishment already on his resume, from the East Coast to the Midwest, including in Elkhorn where he’d been since 1859. The two had known each other for about eight years, with Sanford arriving in Elkhorn in 1860, shortly after Webster had arrived, and not long before the U.S. Civil War commenced. The two were separated during Bennett’s military service during the war, but apparently renewed their friendship after it concluded. There were reportedly other occasions on which Bennett lifted his oft-depressed musician-friend’s spirits, so when Webster entered the druggist’s establishment one day, he needed a remedy he knew he could count on his buddy to produce. Reportedly, Sanford guessed Joseph’s mood, just by observing him, but immediately formulated the words for “Sweet By and By” after hearing his unhappy friend’s response to his greeting. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ was followed by a dismissive retort that included the three little words, ‘by and by.’ The druggist-poet’s stanzas flowed effortlessly in the next few minutes, his product was shown to the musician, and notes were spontaneously fused with words, so that just 30 minutes had elapsed in which the fruit of “Sweet By and By” gestated and ripened. Even customers in the store were seemingly taken with this duo’s musical invention, such was its innate appeal. It flowed, to put it simply.

Sanford’s words lifted Joseph’s emotional state that day in 1868, so swiftly that one might wonder if some chemical ingredient was included in the prescription he gave out that day. What’s evident in his words is something any believer might think is intoxicating, yet true. I’m headed for a beautiful place, according to Bennett’s refrain, one where I’ll reunite with others. This promise must have been one that was important to both men who helped craft “The Sweet By and By”, otherwise why would they have attached themselves to it so readily during a 30-minute episode in a Wisconsin drugstore? Fortunately, for them and us, words don’t reside just in their birthplace. These travel, don’t they? Yeh!        

     

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; 101 More Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985; and Then Sings My Soul, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003. 

See this site for all three of the original verses, and also the brief story of the song: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/i/n/t/intsbab.htm