It most likely coalesced in this 26-year old single young
woman as she lived in northeast Ohio (see map here), and was influenced, at
least indirectly, by her father. Jessie Brown (she later married a preacher
named Pounds) may have even listened to one of her father’s evangelistic
messages as she considered her musical question “Will You Not Tell It Today?”.
It sounds like someone trying to prod a listening heart into action, so maybe it
was a father speaking to his daughter, and she repeating the conversation. She also
may have had an editor from one point in her life, and maybe even a president
(Garfield), to credit for the poetry she composed that year. And, there may
have been others in her world whose debates had stirred her spirit to
self-reflection. Jessie was the product of a community, and so she
reciprocated, someone might say.
Jessie Brown’s precocious childhood probably left very few acquaintances
surprised at her progression and achievement as a writer-poet-composer. Her
father’s conversion and eventual choice to become a pastor and her mother’s
role as a schoolteacher undoubtedly influenced Jessie’s knowledge-seeking
spirit in childhood. It’s said that this schoolgirl listened to lots of debates
among the Hiram (northeast Ohio)-area intellectuals – including James A.
Garfield -- as religion and politics were thrown about verbally. It was no
accident that Jessie was a writing prodigy as a teenager and went to college at
Hiram before needing to withdraw unfortunately because of poor health. She’d also been sickly as a child, and therefore
most likely got a concentrated dose of her mother’s teaching and her father’s
preaching in the home. When she was 15, Jessie was producing articles for
Cleveland newspapers and faith-based publications, and later was mentored by
Isaac Errett, the well-known editor of Christian
Standard. She spent most of her life
of 60 years in her native area, thinking and writing of life there. Much of her
productivity was the at least 400 (some say 800) hymn poems she composed, reflecting
the ardent heart she possessed for spreading the Christian faith. Her words in “Will
You Not Tell It Today” were a product of the area’s local Christian community,
the Disciples of Christ. The words sound like what might have been sung during
an evangelism campaign, or what might have been more commonly called a ‘meeting’.
The first two verses have her pondering personally
the gratitude she has for her Savior, and how that compels the hymn’s question.
Verse three turns the focus completely on hearers who’ve yet to commit. It’s a three-verse
pattern very familiar to meeting-goers, certainly, and also to a young woman
trained hearing others talk, teach, preach, debate, and urge others to a
viewpoint.
Jessie Brown did what came easy for her, given the
upbringing she experienced. She also loved her northeastern Ohio home, and left
it only on occasion, it’s said. The nurture she felt found its way through her
hands onto the pages of hundreds of songs and other written words, and so she
was doing something that could be described as circular. What she received, she
put back into her output, which fed her community, and must have fed her too so
that she could go on repeating this cycle. Hey, that kinda sounds like a
church, doesn’t it? Now you know how to get fed.
See following sites for biography of composer: http://www.hymnary.org/text/if_the_name_of_the_savior_is_precious_to
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