George
Duffield was still grieving his friend’s untimely demise, and evidently wrote
something that was therapeutic for himself and others a week later. “Stand Up,
Stand Up for Jesus” was actually not his idea, but his dying friend’s, and also
a more ancient author’s whose words he examined in the wake of the tragedy that
took his friend. Death is not a kind visitor, and it must have seemed
especially unwelcome for the Philadelphians who had known the minister whose
life they were remembering that early spring of 1858. How unfair it was, but they
must have reasoned that there was once another unjust casualty, one with an
influence that spanned many more years than their departed friend’s. Even their
friend knew this as he slipped into the next world.
The
40-year old George Duffield and his 33-year old friend Dudley Tyng were fellow
servants of God in the city of brotherly love in the 1850s when the latter was
helping to stimulate a revival there. Tyng was described as a dynamic speaker,
whose message once stirred a crowd of 1,000 men to commit themselves to Christ
the same day. This was just days before an accident and its aftermath that took
the young minister’s life. He’d said giving up his right arm was preferable to curbing
the message that God compelled him to deliver. And, so it was, as a piece of
farm machinery hooked his sleeve and crushed his arm a few weeks later. As he
suffered from the loss of blood and the accompanying shock, Tyng whispered to
his father the words that sparked Duffield’s imagination. ‘Stand up for Jesus’,
Tyng urged, just before he expired a few days hence. Both ministers had
witnessed the results of the church’s work in the city, and must have felt they
were winning the spiritual warfare, so it wouldn’t have been unusual for either
man to have been reading about how to engage the enemy. With Tyng’s dying words,
the apostle’s words (Ephesians 6) that George read a few days after his friend’s
death had magnified meaning and impact. George’s sermon that next Sunday concluded
with the six verses from his heart, as he mused about what had happened the
preceding week, and considered how to move forward. His friend’s voice would
not be stilled, after all, because his was just an echo. And, it was not a
lonely, solo voice, either.
One
could say that Dudley Tyng and George Duffield knew how to fight, though they
were disciples of the Prince of Peace. Perhaps their time had no small
influence on their perspective. Both men were ardent abolitionists, and as the
American Civil War loomed, both knew their stand put them at odds with others,
even in the free northern states. With a heightened awareness of the morals of
slavery and their spiritual calling, how could Dudley and George do anything
else, we might ask. As he eulogized his friend George’s poem rings with the
battle cry, with words like ‘soldiers’, ‘army’, ‘victory’, ‘foes’, ‘conflict’, ‘armor’,
‘battles’, and many more, perhaps amplified by what he and others could see
affecting their world, as well as what they thought lay ahead. Paul, the
Apostle, felt the battle went on, as did George Duffield who echoed his
departed friend’s final thoughts. We long for tranquility, but where would you
and I be without the call to arms?
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.
See
biography here of composer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Duffield,_Jr.
See this
link for biography of the composer’s friend, whose last words inspired the
hymn: http://bereanbibleheritage.org/extraordinary/tyng_dudley.php
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