Who at the Door is Standing? -- Mary Bridges Canedy Slade

 

Was she still resisting in some way? Or, maybe she was just a careful listener, and very conscientious regarding what was good versus not so good for her emotional and spiritual health. On the other hand, had Mary Bridges Canedy Slade and her minister-husband just installed a new door at their home (as this blogger did a few years ago, see picture), prompting either of them to ask “Who at the Door is Standing?” on occasion? Probably not the latter – ‘Who’s there?’, we might say when a bell rings or someone knocks - for Mary asks the question as a metaphor. She might have been admitting that she needed to open up and practice a little more submission to her Master’s leading, as someone might do to allow another to enter following a polite request. But, being the spouse of a minister, perhaps she was also providing him an analogy for one of his sermons. After all, who among us hasn’t answered the door, or at least heard the knocking, at least once before?   

 

Mary Slade wrote just a handful of poem-songs, but several have survived and still are part of hymnals today, nearly 150 years after this 50-ish minister’s wife wrote/published this one about a door knocker (in 1876). The Slades were Fall River, Massachusetts residents, where Mary was also a teacher and an editor or publisher of two journals (the New England Journal of Education and Wide Awake) at one time or another. So, her motives for writing could have been various ones, including sermon illustrations for her husband, as well as pieces for discussion in her own classrooms or as articles for the journals she helped promote. Perhaps she used all of these methods to coax her readers to respond to the message from a patient God. From the picture Mary draws of this God, He’s rather unimposing, not hostile. Indeed, ‘patient(ly)’ (v.1) is how she describes Him, with ‘sweet(ly)’-sounding words (refrain) that He uses to ask gently for the hearers’ attention. It’s said that Mary was ‘warm-hearted’, so her depiction of God here was a character sketch that she apparently adopted for herself towards others. She must have thought the message would best communicate if it was personal, too. In the original poem, she says ‘my door’, versus ‘the door’ that is in hymnals today, and each of her verses express a one-to-one relationship between the hearer and the knocker. The hearer’s answer is not immediately positive, as Mary saw ‘lonely’ people and God, too (v.2), who are without each other, though He keeps asking for entrance (v.3). Mary might have been a warm-hearted minister’s wife, but she recognized reality. Some people need lots of time before they will agree that they need Him. Mary’s 4^th verse indicates she saw the reluctant hearer finally responding to Him, with a‘hasten’(ing) and ‘open wide’ attitude. We could conclude that Mary was an optimist, right?

 

Perhaps Mary’s own experience was that He's patient, with a gentle knocking, though it is persistent. If someone kept up that knocking or doorbell-ringing for long at my house, I’d undoubtedly think that person is rude. But, consider this -- at least they don’t try to break down the door! And, will that door-knocker eventually give up, and go away? Will the person inside the house become deaf, or hard-hearted, so that they are immune to the persuader? Mary kept editing the Wide Awake journal until her end, just six years after ‘Who at the Door...’ was published, according to one source. She apparently did not give up easily. Neither does God.     

 

See here for all the song’s verses and the refrain: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/w/h/o/a/whoatmyd.htm

 

Very brief biography on the author: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/l/a/d/slade_mbc.htm

 

A few more details of author here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/nutter/hymnwriters.Slade_NB.html

There’s a Fountain Free – Mary Bridges Canedy Slade

A Massachusetts native, a minister’s wife, and a 50-year old are just some of the characteristics that could be linked to Mary Bridges Canedy Slade in 1876. She was also a teacher and an editor, and therefore someone who might be called a persuader, or a guide for others. That might be most clearly what one might think of Mary when the words of her hymn “There’s a Fountain Free” are scrutinized.  She asks a leading question of those who choose to sing her poem, mingled with a radiant portrayal of what she thinks is much more than the two basic elements commonly called H₂O. She says it’s free…what would you and I do if signs like the one shown here instead became the norm? Perhaps the picture she draws is this way because of the source of the water, and because she says it quenches more than physical thirst.     

Mary Slade was most likely a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, including the city known as Fall River, from where she composed “There’s a Fountain Free”. Did Mary gather her thoughts about water and a fountain from her surroundings? This is a plausible proposition that one would consider for other writers, in fact. Let’s hypothesize for a moment, admittedly in the absence of any other compelling evidence telling us the reason for the song’s composition. Fall River, as its name suggests, has some geographic features that have contributed to its development. In short, it has lots of water -- about 17% of the city is liquid, including rivers, ponds, lakes, and a waterfall that once played an important role – in fact, that was part of the place’s economic engine. So, as Mary lived and took note of her community, did she note these features and intentionally draw an analogy to God’s kingdom? All of Fall River’s abundant water, available to everyone in the area to enjoy, was certainly an advantage to its inhabitants, maybe one that most took for granted. Mary, on the other hand, knew and treasured water, particularly the variety of this quenching commodity from the Divine hand. It has the ‘love’ (v.1) ingredient, as well as a living quality (v.2). While others of her time may have found their own water unpotable on occasion, Mary compared God’s water to ‘crystal’ (v. 2) and said it was ‘pure’ (v.3). While Mary did not openly share the source event for ‘There’s a Fountain Free’, we can know that she was trying to sway those whom she knew. Her poem words coax hearers with the question ‘Will you come to the fountain free?’ What better analog can a writer use than what’s within her own field of vision? Can you and I hear her telling a neighbor ‘See the river or that pond over there? Now, what do you think those are like in God’s home?’

And so, Mary’s conversation with a neighbor would have begun. Natural water has no flavor, of course, perhaps because it needs none. Instead, it takes on another concoction’s taste when merged. A generous Creator certainly is able to satisfy my thirst with other choice drinks, even using water to craft His gift, as His son did on one occasion (John 2:1-10). Yet, natural water is just how He intended it – pure, as Mary reminds us with her words. Water’s one of the simplest molecules, the basic necessity that scientists hunt when searching for life. So, how can it be free, since it’s so valuable? Mary suggests the answer in her words. Because it’s from Him.     
   
See this site for very brief information on the author: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/l/a/slade_mbc.htm
See this site for all the song’s verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/t/a/f/tafountf.htm

See this site for description of place in Massachusetts where author lived: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_River,_Massachusetts

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