I Love to Tell the Story – Arabella Katherine Hankey

This Englishwoman had a mission, yet she didn’t give up its pursuit even while prostrate. One might even ask if Katherine Hankey became sick as part of God’s plan for her to say “I Love to Tell the Story” in an even greater way than she had been doing before. After all, it gave her a chance to reflect and relate in perhaps 100 verses her thoughts as she lay in a bed. The two songs derived from her poem were but a small portion of what she wrote, of how she felt about her faith’s impact. Her exhortation in the poem tells what perhaps is most important to a storyteller. It’s not about how she clung to its details, or about the quality of her voice, or the delivery and pace of her words. Kate would be gratified if we just passed along the story.  

Arabella Katherine Hankey was a 35-year-old Anglican in 1869 who’d been engaged in Christian ministry for many years, and who would continue on for several decades after composing the poem “The Old, Old Story” in the mid-19^th Century. Even as a teenager of a wealthy banker in London, Katherine (known as Kate by most) began sharing the Christ story, probably as a result of an upbringing by devout believers in the Clapham suburb of the city. The believers in this sector of London were not only believers, but also those who put their faith into action. Philanthropy, teaching, social justice (they were slavery abolitionists, led by William Wilberforce) and missionary work marked this group. As such, Kate taught Sunday school classes all over London, initially in her own neighborhood. As a missionary abroad in Africa, she contracted an undefined serious illness that required a lengthy recovery over several months, apparently disabling her from her life’s purpose. The measure of her emotion at this prospect may be the length of the poem she crafted, over 50 stanzas, in which she urges the story’s recitation. Imagine her being handicapped, but with her memory and desire still intact. If she couldn’t stand or travel to find others to communicate the message, her hands would have to do the job. So, she described how this mission made her feel ‘satisified’(v.1), of its ‘wonderfully sweet’ (v. 3) nature that spoke to ‘hungering and thirsting’ people (v.4). She obviously felt intensely the absence of her normal activities, of sharing and seeing the expressions on her students’ faces. But, more than that, she must have felt if she could draw others into being storytellers, the effect of her life, even while suspended, would synergistically increase His kingdom. It’s as if she was putting in action, though personally immobilized, what the psalmist says (34:8) – just taste that, and see how good it really is! Go tell others!

Kate had the message, from start to finish, in her poem. The other parts of her poem relate how God’s plan evolved from creation through Christ, and then through His spirit’s arrival in each of us to spur the story onward. Twenty centuries after Him, we have the advantage of being in the era where we can examine His completed work. From the Garden to now, we’re part of His creation, His story of creatures made in His likeness. ‘How’s that feel?’, I ask myself. Way too much to grasp? Adam and Moses could talk to Him, but they lived before Christ consummated the deal. It’s all way more than I can fathom, honestly. But, not for Him! I just need to keep marveling at the story the way Kate must have.      

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; and 101 Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982.

See the story told here also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_to_Tell_the_Story

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/a/n/hankey_ak.htm

See biography here of composer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Hankey

A link to the original poem the composer wrote: http://www.wholesomewords.org/poetry/oldstory.html

There Is Sunshine in My Soul -- Eliza Edmunds Hewitt

She had just been released from a kind of prison-like experience, and being mobile again, overflowing joy surged through her. That’s the quickest, one-sentence description of what sensation Eliza Edmunds Hewitt felt in 1887 as she scribbled the words for “There Is Sunshine in My Soul”. She could have moaned about how long she’d been trapped, about the lost time and tedium of the past several months, or how she intended to repay the one responsible for these circumstances. But at that moment, rediscovering and appreciating the blessing of her physical freedom and His care for her blotted out those other moods.   

 

Eliza was a 35-year old who had been disabled by an accident, recovered for a time, and then discovered that this period was a precursor for her life’s work. Hewitt had begun what she thought was her life’s calling as a teacher in Philadelphia, after attending schools there herself as a youngster. She was at the corner of 23^rd and Brown Streets one day, in a classroom at the Northern Home for Friendless Children (see a sketch of it here), when her life took an unexpected turn. Teaching in a school for orphans must have had its challenges – was it more or less difficult than other schools is a debatable question – but Eliza could not have welcomed the assault from a student who cracked her across the back with a piece of slate one day. The incident left her in a large cast for several months, a trial that surely had at least part of her wondering ‘why me?’ You can infer from the words she penned the day of her release from this cast what she was doing. Taking a walk through a sunny park on a spring day radiates from the words she composed, a blessing that she just couldn’t ignore upon her return to her home from this stroll. She could walk again! Did she hug the doctor? If she did, she thanked Jesus still more, for perhaps the experience had focused her conscience upon Him more than ever. The song-writing she’d begun after her bed-ridden experience had evidently made a lasting impression upon her, so that when her spinal condition turned out to be chronic, she turned to an alternative life’s work. Sunday schools and song-writing were her passion from that point forward, producing an abundance of hymns – over 1,700!—until her death in 1920.

What pushes someone like Eliza Hewitt to such prolific heights? Had she read about Joseph, the great son of a Genesis patriarch, who might have bemoaned his imprisonment in Egypt?  He avoided revenge’s temptation. No jail kept him from using what was inside of himself, not even death’s threat. He was the hint of Him, so to speak, who would later arrive on the scene of history and overcome life’s reverses. Eliza must have remembered Him too, don’t you think?       

See more information on the song discussed above in 101 More Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.

See here for list of composer’s works: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/e/w/hewitt_ees.htm