Hark the Gentle Voice - Mary B.C. Slade

What would a 50-ish minister’s wife, teacher, and editor have to say that could be the subject of one of her spouse’s sermons, as well as be published and used for her own testimony about herself? Mary Bridges Canedy Slade was probably sitting in her home or somewhere nearby in 1870s Massachusetts (see the town of Fall River here) when she sketched an emotional picture of the Divine One in “Hark the Gentle Voice”.  Was she also sharing with a professor-friend what she thought, so that they could converse and have her musings communicated with his students, too? Mary was feeling like another Mary of His acquaintance: He’s God, but so very kind to those who will draw close. She related that such a relationship isn’t a one-way street, however, prompting someone who’s cautious to note that bearing each other’s burdens, with God in the exchange, is a breathtaking reciprocal thing. I unload some of my stuff on Him, but I also take on some of His. Ready?

Mary Slade was well-along in her life by the time she wrote “Hark the Gentle Voice”, while serving in various roles. And so, she was likely writing with her minister-husband, Albion King Slade, and others in mind. The words she crafted sound like what someone might say from the pulpit to coax others to respond, particularly with the words ‘Come, and I will give you rest’ that conclude the refrain. Perhaps it was even more likely that her friend Professor R.M. McIntosh was the recipient of Mary’s verses, since she reportedly wrote most of her handful of hymns for him. What’s the character of Jesus like? That’s a question an educator and writer might ask; so did Mary, as a teacher herself, have occasion to discuss this with McIntosh to arrive at her perspective of Him? What God-like character traits did she paint into the picture of Jesus? Tenderness (vv.1, 3); meekness (v.2); of course, love (vv.1, 3); and holiness (v.2) are all there in her poem. Mary the teacher likewise heard His teaching offer (v.2). Yet, there’s also Jesus’s yoke and burden (vv.2-3) that Mary invites the believer to accept, a circumstance that would naturally prompt a momentary pause, particularly if His ultimate sacrifice is considered. Want to dump your troubles and take on God’s instead? We can presume that Mary had made this kind of exchange and thought it was worth it, in fact ‘light and easy’ (v.3). If I cringe at the burden (death) He carried, I also embrace with hope and triumph (resurrection) what follows. Sound like a plan to mortgage your life on?

Calculate what you get, versus what you forfeit, Mary says. How was the calculation of one Mary in Jesus’s time changed when she observed a stunning reversal – i.e., how the burden vanishes in His presence (John 11:28-44)? It must have seemed pretty confusing to see Him actually consumed later by this death-burden in His own life after what He did for Lazarus. Yet, one instant does not a done deal make when the God-Son is involved. That’s what Mary in 33 A.D. discovered, and what another Mary some 1,800 years later underscored once again. Don’t fret over your own burden, or over taking on His. We’re talking about Him, not the burden. You and I just have to keep hearing His voice, the way the 1876 Mary did.    

Brief biographic sketch of the author is here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/l/a/slade_mbc.htm

A little more biography here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/nutter/hymnwriters.Slade_NB.html

See all the song’s verses here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/h/a/r/k/harkgevo.htm

Yield Not to Temptation -- Horatio R. Palmer

For the moment, Horatio was tired of theory. He asked himself ‘How did one expect to manage events – or could one, really, without making mistakes born of temptation?’ That thought crossed Horatio Richmond Palmer’s mind in the mid-1800s, and so he jotted down his answers in “Yield Not to Temptation”, in order to add some practical words to what someone might conceptually offer as advice for the person seeking to live right. Horatio was involved in many other efforts on that day in Chicago, but something sprang into his brain without warning, and experience taught him that the moment should not be cast aside. Musical ideas were gifts, this musician sensed intrinsically. Was the subject one that had been stuck in neutral, then suddenly coalesced, with the unpredictable aid of something else that was on his plate that moment? Even Horatio might say ‘I don’t know – I just listened to my insides.’

Horatio Palmer was a 34-year old in 1868, who was in what he himself might have called a midwestern interlude, surrounded by long stretches of time in the New York area. He’d moved to Chicago after growing up and beginning his musical career in the Rushford Academy in New York. He began singing at age seven, but perhaps another event in his childhood further imprinted his character. His mother died when he was three (though at some point his father re-married, giving Horatio a stepmother), so could one say that the church and the choir directed by his father (Anson) became a kind of surrogate family? Perhaps that was why he stayed nearby for his further education and first position as a teacher and musical director (also at Rushford). By 1868, he had moved to the windy city and was employing his musical acumen at a Baptist church as its choir director. ‘Yield Not…’ came to him quite abruptly one day as he worked on a rather tedious subject of ‘Theory’, by his own admission. He swiftly recorded the music and first two verses, and also a third that was later revised with the aid of a friend. Palmer offers no other details, but we can surmise from our own experiences that what he describes is plausible. The mind can do one thing and conjure up something else – the two things being unrelated, seemingly. His subject, temptation, must have been lodged somewhere inside his being, apparently just waiting for the right nourishment. One can imagine that it had begun with a conversation, perhaps a spiritual message, some time before without offering an immediate resolution. Was he subconsciously mulling over this issue, some unhealthy compulsion that bothered him or others? Could this be true, even in a church crowd where Horatio found himself? That’s life, right? No one’s immune.

Though Horatio had returned to New York by 1873, he’d sustained something in the Midwest that was with him on either side of that time. He organized or directed many other choral efforts over the following few decades, as he did first at Rushford. His interlude in Chicago was not a departure from his musical upbringing, nor from his deeper beliefs, we can presume. And, temptation was not something he found just in Chicago, undoubtedly. Yet, Horatio had an epiphany there about its solution, or at least a way to recognize it and try to avoid it. Watch out for dark thoughts (v.1), avoid some people if necessary and keep a rein on my own tongue (v.2); at the same time, be thoughtful, kind, and truthful (also v.2). How’s that list rank on the difficulty scale? Try out what he said, and see if they still work today.

See more information on the song discussed above in The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.  Also, see Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990.

See biography of the composer here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/p/a/l/palmer_hr.htm

The following website has a soundtrack and the lyrics for the song: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/y/i/e/yieldnot.htm