There's a Great Day Coming -- Will L. Thompson

 

It would not have been unusual for him to have written the first words of this song on a stray scrap of paper. William Lamertine Thompson admitted that’s how many of his compositions began, so perhaps that was also true of “There’s a Great Day Coming”, which this 39-year-old entrepreneur fashioned in the mid-1880s. Was Will at his East Liverpool, Ohio home (see map), or does his poetry suggest he was sitting in a church in this small community when he was moved by a particular moment? This fellow had done much to carve out his own success, and had the respect and admiration of his community and family, in both secular and spiritual realms, but he didn’t lean on just his earthly accomplishments and relationships. One could readily say that Will wanted to be ready for another time, and wanted to challenge others with that same question he must have asked himself.

 

Will Thompson might have been in any number of places with special circumstances that sparked his thoughts, as so often happened with his poetic compositions. He could have been at home in East Liverpool, or maybe traveling abroad as he sometimes did with his family, on the premises of his publishing company, or in a church building during a worship service. These and many others would have been normal venues for Thompson, as he pursued writing and publishing church music, in addition to writing some secular music. Will evidently loved his community in eastern Ohio, and did much in a philanthropic way to preserve its history and set aside land for residents’ enjoyment. And yet, he must have also wanted everyone to know that time there was short, and not to be so cherished that no one planned for an eternal home. With the words of ‘There’s a Great Day…’, it would be easy to imagine that Will was sitting in a worship service, perhaps listening to an especially resonant sermon or taking note of the moment someone responded to the preacher’s message. Was he also thinking about and yearning for someone who was still acting skeptical about the hereafter? The results of that moment or moments could have been scrawled on a piece of paper now long-discarded by Will, but at least he preserved what may still be that episode’s most consequential effect – this song. With the words ‘Are you ready?’ that he asks repeatedly, Will wanted others to be in that moment also. Was Will being merely rhetorical? If he were here, we could guess that he would answer with a loud ‘NO!’ He saw it as a ‘great’ (v.1) and ‘bright’ (v.2) day for the believer, but was not shy about warning people he must have felt were not committed to God. To say it would be a ‘sad’ (v.3) day for the unsaved was not enough; Will told them it would mean their ‘doom’ (v.3), and that the ‘bright day…only come(s)’ (v.3) for the saved. ‘Depart’ (v.3) would be the direction those unfortunate would hear.

 

Will seems to be asking the hearer to decide for him/herself: is this ‘Great Day’ a magnificent one, or instead an awful one? And, does piling on more adjectives to amplify one’s description of that day help you and me understand it better? Will Thompson really didn’t try to underscore he message with more descriptive phrases. Instead, he just repeats the question each hearer must use to probe the conscience. Can you be honest with yourself, even for just a moment? God doesn’t ask for your perfection. He provided that part. What Will apparently apprehended, and what you and I need to see is this: The day is coming; it will be inescapable. Do you want the God of the universe to transport you in that moment?      

 

See short biography on author here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/t/h/o/m/p/thompson_wl.htm

 

See a longer biography here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Lamartine_Thompson

 

See all of the song’s verses here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/t/g/r/e/tgreatda.htm

Work, for the Night Is Coming -- Annie Walker Coghill

 

Did she really like work this much?! Most people think of work in a negative way…I have to go to work. But, perhaps Annie Louisa Walker (later Coghill) was really just taking a cue from what she’d read God-in-the-flesh once say about his daily activities. ‘Do what I made you to be’, she might have surmised, or as she paraphrased what He said, “Work, for the Night Is Coming”. She didn’t feel that saying it only once or a few times was sufficient, but was it a conscious choice to say ‘work’ the same number of times as her age? Some circumstances in England, or as likely in southern Quebec (in Canada – see map) where her family had recently arrived, coaxed three poetic verses from this teenager’s pen. The poem’s theme evidently stuck with Annie, as the subsequent years in her new home and then later after she returned to England showed.

 

Annie Walker’s location when she wrote about work is suggested in the publication where her poem-hymn first appeared, and the title she chose further indicates at least one activity in which she was engaged when she picked up her pen. Leaves from the Backwoods that was published in Montreal, Canada in 1862 contained the poem she first crafted with the words ‘The Night Cometh’. It was evidently something she created as an 18-year-old in 1854, shortly after her family arrived in Pointe-Lé­vy, Qué­bec from England (in 1853). The area was still developing in the mid-19^th Century, with Annie’s father working for the regional railroad that connected the American northeast with southeastern Canada. Perhaps Annie thought of the area as ‘backwoods’, compared to the old-world England where she’d been born and raised up until her mid-teens. But, it didn’t seem to bother her, this girl who penned the word ‘work’ (or a synonym or form of the word ‘work’) 18 times in just three verses. Her phraseology indicates she was reading about an encounter Jesus had with a blind man whom He healed (John 9), when His followers asked Jesus to explain the root cause of the man’s disability. In short, Jesus did not affix blame. Instead, He looked at the situation as an opportunity to ‘work’, to reveal the power of God. Since He was in fact the God-man, could Jesus do any less than a God-work? And so, He also must have suspected that His work would cause no little consternation among the locals, especially the ‘religious’ authorities, since what He’d done happened on the Sabbath when any work was taboo.

 

We can guess that Annie was inspired by Jesus’ example, given her poem’s opening words and how many times she recommends being about one’s toil throughout ‘Work…Night Is Coming’. Was this a window onto her own life? Annie and two sisters would help organize and operate a school in Ontario, and then later she was a governess and book reviewer in England. Annie went on to author nine other publications, in addition to Leaves from the Backwoods. Annie had lots of abilities, and wasn’t shy about using the skills with which she’d been blessed. You and I might look at God and say, I cannot do as He could! True, but take a page from Annie Walker Coghill’s life example. Work can be a great thing, if it reflects the Great One who moves you.

 

  

   

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.

 

See the author’s biography here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/o/g/h/coghill_alw.htm

Also see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Louisa_Walker

See the song’s verses here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/w/o/r/k/workfort.htm

See here for information about the place from where the author wrote her song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9vis,_Quebec

Come to Jesus -- Eden Reeder Latta

 

He was a 39-year-old school teacher in eastern Iowa, small-town 19^th Century midwestern America. That would be one way to characterize Eden Reeder Latta. More lies at and below the surface of Eden, however, someone who wanted others to “Come to Jesus”. Who he was coaxing would probably have been anyone within earshot, including school children or maybe Sunday worship crowds where he would have been in Delaware County (see the map-graphic). But Eden’s reach was not confined to Iowa, although he would live nearly all of his 76 years of life there. His hymn writing alone – some 1,600 hymns are attributed to Eden Latta -- tells the researcher that he was looking far afield, and sought to draw others in the same direction, with the same aspiration that generations before and after his own life possessed.

 

Eden Latta had some fundamental building blocks in his first three decades of life that contributed to what he wanted to say in 1878 in ‘Come to Jesus’.  Even his first name tells one that his upbringing was by bible-reading parents – Eden, suggesting his parents arrived at this name while pursuing the first few pages of that ancient text. Did they see their young son as a paradise inhabitant, or did Eden’s parents really just want to link him to the source of the story about this place? Only his parents could adequately explain. Eden’s father was a minister, a path that the son would briefly follow during the American Civil War. So, one can imagine Eden acquired some attention in his introduction, and later as he focused hearers with a message he had learned from childhood. As a teacher, he must have believed that what had been good for his education as a youth was likewise sound for his own pupils, both in Manchester and then in Colesburg, Iowa. Telling students or churchgoers about Jesus would have been basic to Eden’s personality, and a way to help transport himself and others far outside the borders of one state. We can surmise that Eden loved his life and where he lived, since he made it his home for many decades. But he was talking to people with ‘sins…like crimson’ (v.1), those who should be aiming for ‘mercy’s gate’ (v.2), but who might this objective because they were ‘dying sinner (s)’ (v.3). Living a good and decent life in Iowa would not be sufficient. Must have been a hard truth for some to hear, you think?

 

Insert your own name and where you live, and recompute what Eden would say to you. And, think some more, asking and answering some questions that Eden Latta might have posed to his generation. Have you intentionally hurt anyone, or committed any crimes that landed you in jail? My answers would be ‘no’. Been a good neighbor, respecting others’ peace and quiet? Paid your taxes? Warned others when you saw danger about to cause them harm? Gave others some sage advice after an experience you wanted to share? You and I routinely act like responsible citizens and help others, because it makes our earthly community more livable; no one wants chaos. How about doing some things to plan for your next abode? Eden had a three-word bit of advice.

 

 

See here for brief author biography: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/l/a/t/t/latta_er.htm

 

See also here: https://hymnary.org/person/Latta_Eden

 

See all the song’s verses here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/c/o/t/j/cotjesus.htm