The Glory-Land Way -- James Samuel Torbett

This fellow was a teacher, composer, encourager, and finally a happy citizen of a world about which he wrote and eventually sang to himself as he prepared to exit this one and go there. (It’s difficult to depict, but try this one attempt at Heaven.)  

James Samuel Torbett must have been thinking a long time about his eventual home by the time he composed “The Glory-Land Way” in 1921. He’d spent decades communicating the elemental truths he thought his students should know, so when he wrote out the words, they were the summation of his life’s purpose over the previous three or four decades. And, they weren’t just a tick list of items, but really a window revealing how he felt about his existence, a finite period that he did not bemoan. See if his recipe for life might have some ingredients still worth consuming.

James Torbett grew up hearing music, a medium that evidently captured his imagination and endured until his very last mortal moments. One of his brothers provides much of what we know of James and how he made such a musical impact upon those he encountered (see links below). He was an eager learner himself, including under the tutelage of his father, who was a church song-leader and a model for the youngster. The Torbetts’ music teacher-neighbor Mrs. Gillespie evidently also was a crucial piece in his youthful development, and by the age of 20 he too, like his mentors, had begun teaching music.  For the following decades, James travelled about, evidently in his native Deep South, perhaps Georgia and Alabama, which various sources alternately indicate were his birthplace, but likely also Texas where he eventually died by 1940. His routine was to form classes of up to 25 students for singing lessons. But, singing was not the only purpose – it was the avenue for communicating God’s message. It’s said that “The Glory-Land Way” was Torbett’s most well-known song, and its words indicate he must have learned something too while teaching thousands of students. There’s an ebullient flow to what he says in 1921, his 56^th year. He felt upbeat and expectant, writing that ‘heaven is nearer…and clearer” at this time of his life. Perhaps as he aged, James was saying that he was more and more capable of focus, of letting the potential distractions fade. Do you think he had seen the good fruits of his teaching, perhaps numerous times over, by this time? Maybe others had also taken up the faith he’d expressed musically, a good reason to make someone exult about travelling the ‘glory-land way’. And, his life wasn’t winding down, as some do. No, he felt something, a life with an eternal purpose, pulling him along a path. It’s said that he sang this song on his own bed and passed into eternity shortly thereafter in 1940. But, he wasn’t feeling that life was over – far from it.

James Torbett evidently taught for 35 years, beginning as a young man of twenty, so “The Glory-Land Way” is from the heart of a fellow looking back over his life of mentorship to others, but also looking forward and appreciating his own mentor-God. He was ‘smelling the roses’ a little, perhaps, and that’s OK if one is remembering doing good in His name.  He was letting the music and joy of his lifestyle speak to others. He wanted his hearers to know there were no regrets. Do you have disappointments? I sure do, too often. Too bad Torbett’s no longer here to personally tell me of his alternative…or is he?

See this link for birthdate and death information on the composer: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/t/o/r/torbett_js.htm

See here for very brief biographic entry on composer: http://www.hymnary.org/person/Torbett_JS1

Also see here for more biographic information on composer:  https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/hymnoftheday/conversations/topics/1230

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txfalls/BIOGRAPHIES/bioTORBETTjamessamuel.htm