This
32-year old would be prolific in more than one way in his faith expression, but
he was probably just getting started, as one century neared its conclusion and
another one was about to commence. John Ralston Clements made his home in the
Binghampton, New York area, and may have spent much of his time in a classroom
(perhaps similar to the one shown here – in what was known as Lestershire [now
Johnson City], New York – sometime before 1923), or in a grocery store, but
wherever he was, he probably had a song-poem in his head. He was Irish-born,
but evidently adapted well to America as he pursued the faith he accepted as an
18-year old in his new country. It was 1899, and John had a counterpoint to
darkness in a poem he called “No Night There” (also known as “In the Land of
Fadeless Day”), perhaps one bit of mental imagery he tried to get his students
to visualize.
It’s
probably not too speculative to suggest that John Clements was heavily involved
in the education of many students around the turn of the 18th-19th
Century, and that this perhaps played a part in many of the poem-songs he
wrote. His family had emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland when John was two
years old, and later he worked in the grocery business as a young teenager and
evidently into his adult years. He was the first president of what was known as
the Practical Bible Training School – later to be renamed Davis College (after
its founder, John Adelbert Davis), a position he held shortly before the turn
of the century until 1914. So, John Clements was evidently fairly accomplished
and recognized for his acumen by the time he was in his early 30s. The poetry he
produced – he would reportedly write some 5,000 poem-songs over his lifetime –
was one manifestation of his prodigious ability. He must have touched several
hundred, if not thousands of students during his 17-year stint as the school’s
president, too. Moreover, he certainly possessed a pretty strong conviction,
based upon these two data points – his poetry and leadership of the school. You
can sense it in the song he wrote also around this time. Notice the phrase
‘..the city foursquare’ that he uses repeatedly (it’s in all four verses he
composed). Do you think John was describing the eternal city’s geometric shape,
really? Or, was he more likely struck by ‘foursquare’ in the sense of this
city’s firmness and certainty, based upon its founder? One can imagine that
John evaluated his own life, and that of the school’s students, and concluded
that their convictions should be forthright and strong, matching that of the
city where they all wanted to live ultimately. Perhaps John communicated this
attitude in the various roles he played, as school president, poet, and even as
a grocer.
Conviction
was one word that must have described John Clements. Meet life with a faith head-on.
Don’t try to swerve too much, he might have said. John, like any of us,
certainly knew of the valleys. He wrote about them in his song’s refrain –
‘tears…death…pain…fears’. But, he juxtaposes them against the stunning scenery
of the city he saw in his mind. That’s where his faith found its foundation. If
your houses creaks, like mine, it’s natural sometimes to wonder if there’s a
structural problem. Probably smart to maybe have it checked out by an expert,
huh? How’s your foundation doing? Maybe that’s not too far off from a question
John Clements might have asked himself.
See here
for brief biography of the author: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/l/e/clements_jr.htm
See here
for all four verses of the song: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/n/n/i/nnighthr.htm
Also, see
here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Clements
See link
here re: the school the author started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_College_(New_York)
Wow
ReplyDeleteGreat history here.