This 32-year
old English woman was sick, and was it perhaps the depth of her illness that
spurred the prodigious 50 verses that she would compose over a several-month
stretch? From those 50 verses would spring “Tell Me the Old, Old Story”, a
poetic appeal that Kate Hankey (her first name actually is Arabella) constructed
to express what she initially sensed most strongly. Another part of the same
poem led to a companion hymn (I Love to Tell the Story; see Feb. 13, 2016 entry
of this blog) that would consummate her request and then the desire to relate
what she’d heard. Quite a woman, someone who would not be stopped from sharing
what she felt was most important, even while too ill to go about doing so in
person. How many of us would do this?
Kate Hankey
was the daughter of a wealthy banker, but she found her spiritual roots via
other stimuli in her life in 19th Century England. The Hankey family
were ardent believers in what was known as the Clapham sect of Anglicanism.
Besides being a Sunday school teacher, she was inspired by the likes of John
Wesley and William Wilberforce, and therefore believed strongly in anti-slavery
and pro-missionary positions in the social structure of the time. She would also
travel to South Africa as a nurse, and cared for her handicapped brother for
a time. She herself would become seriously ill in 1866, preventing her, apparently,
from fulfilling her most passionate purpose – teaching about and steering
others to the Holy Son. Nevertheless, during her recovery from the malady that
laid her up, she wrote a lengthy poem that conveyed two main thoughts: She
wanted to hear the story – Part 1, The Story Wanted – and then she wanted to be
able to re-tell it – Part 2, The Story Told. You can tell from what she penned
that she still felt sickly, with phrases like ‘weak and weary’ (v.1), and ‘…time
of trouble, a comforter to me.’ (v. 3) She relates that she began in January of
that year, and finished her thoughts some 10 months later. This was a person
who knew not how to quit! Can one say that her perseverance and devotion were
rewarded, since she indeed did recover and lived many more years (until 1911)?
Kate Hankey would probably say that
she was rewarded, but not perhaps in the way others might have thought. Her health
rebounded, and she lived many more years. Did she merely bask in her recovered physical
well-being, though? If she stayed true to her pre-sickness form, we can guess
that she continued teaching, and still supported abolitionism and missionary
works. She wrote only a few hymn texts over her lifetime, but that doesn’t tell
the entire story. Kate’s story may have been simple, contained in but a few
sentences necessary to relate its highlights. The other story we have from her,
she would undoubtedly say, is more noteworthy. Perhaps that was enough reward
for her. It’s OK if another story outranks hers, don’t you think?
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; 101 Hymn Stories, by Kenneth
W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985; and A Treasury of Hymn Stories by
Amos R. Wells, Baker Book House, 1945.
See this
site for all of the original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/t/e/l/l/tellmoos.htm
See a few
brief details of the composer’s life here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/a/n/k/hankey_ak.htm
See this
site also for a brief biography of the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Hankey
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