In 1889 the Gospel Advocate magazine of Nashville, Tennessee released its first hymnal under the title Christian Hymns. It was a small book containing 276 songs, but it can be claimed as the first hymnal intentionally for the use of the Churches of Christ, as the conservative, non-instrumental wing of the Restoration Movement in the United States was beginning to be identified. And though much of its content would fall by the wayside in coming years, we can identify at least one cluster of songs introduced by this hymnal that are still widely used today--five memorable lyrics by Mary B.C. Slade, listed below:
Who at my door is standing? (tune name ALBERTA)
Of the 276 hymns in Christian Hymns, in fact, 25 had lyrics by Mary Slade, almost twice as many as any other lyricist (including Watts, Wesley, and Fanny Crosby). Though the majority of her lyrics here were set to music by the prolific Methodist music editor, Rigdon McIntosh, 9 of them--including all five listed above--were set to music by McIntosh's late associate and mentor, Dr. Asa B. Everett. The combination of Slade's lyrics and Everett's music brought about a lasting group of songs that make this unlikely pair--a Northerner and a Southerner, who may have never met--worth a closer look. In this post, we will look at the contributions of Mrs. Slade; in a later post, we will address the career of Dr. Everett.
Mary Bridges Canedy Slade (1826-1882)
The 19th-century American hymnologist Hezekiah Butterworth offers this tribute to the life and work of Mary B. C. Slade, which serves as a fitting introduction to this interesting woman's career:
In music-books for young people and the fireside are to be found the initials "M. B. C. S." Few people are acquainted with the history of this lady out of her own city and State, except the mere fact that she was the editor of a school publication of much interest and worth, called "Good Times," and wrote much for young people, especially school songs. She died in Fall River, Mass., in the spring of 1882, at the age of fifty-six. In her early life she was a teacher. Out of this experience came two successful books, "The Children's Hour," and "Exhibition Days." She was one of the editors of the "Journal of Education," edited the "School Festival," and conducted a department in the Philadelphia "School Day Magazine." She was a most prolific writer of Sunday-school and day-school songs. Children were her delight. She worked for them to the last under the shadow of the sickness that ended her life. Her one ambition was to prepare the young for the highest duties of life. Millions of young people owe good influences to her.A lifelong resident of Fall River, Massachusetts, Mary Bridges Canedy was born into a prominent and progressive family in that city. Her grandfather, John Luther, was one of the first dozen or so residents (Phillips, I:73). Mary's father, William B. Canedy, appears again and again in connection with public works committees (Borden, 514ff.), and served as a selectman (1812-1813) and as town clerk (1814-1815) (Centennial History, 239ff.). He was especially involved in the schools, having been named to the committee that conducted the first school census and set up the districts (Borden, 605), and serving on the School Committee in 1808, 1812, 1826, and 1827 (Centennial History, 240ff.).
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| Squire Canedy house, Mary's childhood home |
During Mary's youth Fall River rapidly became a major textile center, and was an early example of the social problems that came with industrialization. The town was divided between the old families and the increasing numbers of poor factory workers, many of them recent immigrants (Fowler, 63-65). The particular plight of child workers was brought forward by an 1842 petition to the Massachusetts Legislature appealing for regulation of their working hours and better provision for their education. Mary followed the family tradition of public service, and was appointed the teacher for the Second Primary School in 1845 at the age of nineteen (Fall River School Committee Report, 14). In fact all seven of the Canedy daughters became teachers, two of them traveling south to teach Freedmen's schools after the Civil War (Champlin).
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| Albion & Mary Slade home, today an office building |
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| Mary Slade ca. 1850, Collection of the Fall River Historical Society |
After her marriage, Mary no longer appeared in the School Committee Reports; married women of her class typically kept house instead of working in the public. Not to say that her life was dull--in the 1850s the Mary and Albion Slade became associated with the Underground Railroad, offering their home as a safe house for Blacks who had escaped slavery in the South (Snodgrass, 486). According to her granddaughter, Slade used her charming personality and gift of conversation to stall law officers who came to search the house, throwing them off the trail and giving the fugitives time to relocate (Champlin). Mary Slade's willingness to reach across social barriers is also seen in her interaction with Joseph Krauskopf (1858-1923), later an important rabbi of Reform Judaism, but at the time just a 14-year-old immigrant boy on his own looking for work. He walked into the Slade home by mistake one day, thinking it was the public library, and ended up with an open invitation to borrow from the Slades' own books. Mary mentored the young man, and wrote a reference letter encouraging his acceptance at the newly founded Hebrew Union College (Bloom, 11-13).
Though she never taught full-time again, Slade's heart was still in the classroom and her pen was rarely still. She filled up her spare time writing poetry, songs, plays, and other enrichment activities for young children. Her earliest publication appears to be "Birds and Angels," a moralizing poem published in The Child's Friend and Family Magazine, Feb 1, 1853 (American Periodicals, ProQuest). From that time on her various sobriquets "M. B. C. Slade", "Mary B. C. Slade", or just "M. B. C. S." turn up in a variety of education journals and children's and family magazines. For a sense of the variety of areas in which her work had an impact, she was published in the inaugural volume of the Indiana School Journal in 1856, was reprinted in The Sunday School Teacher, and was a frequent contributor to children's magazines such as Our Young Folks. She wrote a number of original teaching pieces for L. O. Emerson's Merry Chimes: A Collection of Songs, Duets, Trios, and Sacred Pieces (Philadelphia: Charles Trumpler, 1865), and was prominently featured in the preface to that work. In the last decade of her life she edited the "Department of Dialogues and School Entertainments" in Boston University's prestigious Journal of Education. Her magnum opus was The Children's Hour (Boston: Henry A. Young, 1880), "containing dialogues, speeches, motion songs, tableaux, charades, blackboard exercises, juvenile comedies, and other entertainments, for primary schools, kindergartens, and juvenile home entertainments."
It was only natural that Mary B. C. Slade would try her hand at song lyrics. To the excellent list at Hymnary.org I have added a few other discoveries, documenting 158 unique lyrics by Mary Slade (no doubt there were more) set to music by gospel song composers. In 1866 she broke into this field as a contributor to an interesting series called Our Song Birds, published by the Chicago firm Root & Cady. The children's music editor of Root & Cady, Benjamin R. Hanby, had the unusual concept of a children's secular song collection issued in quarterly parts, each named for a seasonal bird: The Snow Bird for January, The Robin (April), The Red Bird (July), and The Dove (October). Hanby's untimely death in 1867 brought the series to a close with two posthumous installments, The Blue Bird and The Linnet. Though it is uncertain if they ever met in person, Mary Slade corresponded with Hanby during the production of these songbooks (Gross, 70ff.). Slade contributed 16 lyrics to The Snow Bird, and 45 lyrics in all to a series that totaled 306 songs (Gross, Appendix C). (Coincidentally, the most famous result of this series was the Christmas song "Up on the house top" by B. R. Hanby in The Dove, but Mary Slade was not involved.)
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| George F. Root |
Slade's collaboration with Root came to a sudden halt with the destruction of the Root & Cady publishing plant in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Though Root would eventually recover, the company was forced to sell its catalogue of copyrights and printing plates. Most went to the John Church Company of Cincinnati, with some going to Brainard & Sons in Cleveland, Ohio (Root 157). From this point forward we see Slade's songs began to appear in reprints in a wider variety of songbooks from various publishers. Slade wrote ten new songs for the Brainard publications Joyful Songs and Pure Diamonds, both published in 1872, all of which were set to music by the book's editor James R. Murray. A protégé of Root, Murray was a gifted editor (Root 142), and had taken Hanby's place in completing The Linnet, the last of the Song Birds books. Pure Diamonds was said to have sold half a million copies (Jones 104). Murray would continue to reprint Slade's songs during his later association with the John Church Company.
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| Rigdon McIntosh |
How exactly the ex-Confederate McIntosh obtained the services of the abolitionist Mary Slade is unknown, but in 1871 she supplied eight new lyrics for The Amaranth, a Sunday School book that McIntosh was editing for the Southern Methodist Publishing House. It is interesting that all of these were set to music by Asa B. Everett instead of McIntosh, even though McIntosh was never shy about including his own compositions. Perhaps there was some prior connection between Slade and the Everett during his student days in Boston, or during his Canadian sojourn; perhaps also they were more sympathetic in political and social views. (Slade's connection with McIntosh was fruitful, regardless, and continued well after Everett's death.) Oswalt notes that The Amaranth included more songs by Mary Slade than by any other living writer, including Fanny Crosby. And though most have fallen by the wayside, this publication saw the first appearance of one of the timeless Slade-Everett hymns, "Sweetly, Lord, have we heard Thee calling (Footsteps of Jesus)." Hymnary.org counts 200 hymnals that have reprinted this song over the years, the first of Mary Slade's lyrics to break double digits.
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| from The Amaranth (Nashville: Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1871) |
Atticus Haygood, the denomination's Sunday School Secretary, noted in 1873 that The Amaranth had sold 50,000 copies in a little over a year (The Emerald, preface). Though this was just a fraction of what the most successful Sunday School books might sell in the North, it was an encouraging number for a denominational press in the recovering post-war economy of the South. Encouraged by this reception, it seems, McIntosh was commissioned to bring out a companion book, The Emerald. His co-editor Haygood remarked that this effort "excels in the number of what we have called subject-songs . . . most written expressly for this book," where were "as useful in impressing the lessons as they are beautiful in expression and evangelical in sentiment" (Oswalt 192, quoting Sunday School Magazine 2 (April 1872): 110). Though these songs are not specifically marked in the songbook, there is a group of 25 selections that have instructions to read a Scripture selection before singing the song based upon that text. All of these are by Mary Slade, and it seems likely that she was asked to produce songs on these particular passages to fit with the Sunday School lessons. Anyone who has taught children's classes can see the usefulness of such songs, especially those dealing with specific events in the life of Christ.
| TITLE | FIRST LINE | SCRIPTURE |
| Sinful cities | Thou Bethsaida, the lovely | Mt. 10:13-15 |
| Come unto Me | Hark, the gentle voice of Jesus falleth | Mt. 11:28-30 |
| The sower | Hear how a sower | Mt. 13:1-8,18-23 |
| The mustard seed | Liken the kingdom to the springing | Matt. 13:31-32 |
| The lost sheep | The ninety and nine, his dear ones that stay | Matt. 18:12-14 |
| The two sons | A man had two sons | Matt. 21:28-31 |
| The marriage of the king's son | Once a feast was made | Matt. 22:1-14 |
| The ten virgins | Once, forth to meet the bridegroom | Matt. 25:1-13 |
| The seed growing silently | So is the kingdom | Mark 4:26-29 |
| Peace, be still! | Rocked upon the raging billow | Mark 4:37-41 |
| Blind Bartimeus | As forth from the city | Mark 10:46-52 |
| Mary's memorial | Mary her dear Master sought | Mark 14:3-9 |
| The barren fig-tree | In the vineyard of the Master | Luke 13:6-9 |
| The prodigal son | The younger son, unto his father | Luke 15:11-32 |
| The Pharisee and the publican | Into the temple of God, one day | Luke 18:10-14 |
| Let them come | O I love to think how Jesus | Luke 18:15-16 |
| Jesus at Jacob's well | O come to the beautiful valley with me | John 4:4-42 |
| The Master calleth for thee | Her sad vigil keeping | John 11:28-29 |
| Behold I stand at the door | Knock! knock! hear Him knock! | Rev. 3:20 |
| Happy pilgrims | To the heavenly Jerusalem | Rev. 21:2, 18-27 |
| The golden city | Say, have you read in the story olden | Rev. 21:18-23 |
| To Canaan | We are marching to Canaan | Ps. 7:14, 15, 25-29 |
| Praise the Lord! | Praise the Lord, happy children | Ps. 149:1,2, 100:2, 18:1 |
| The kingdom coming | From all the dark places | Isa. 11:9, Rev. 11:15, Ps. 20:5 |
| The living waters | The prophet stands and he lifts his voice | Isa. 55:1, John 7:37, Rev. 22:17 |
Most of Slade's texts in The Emerald (29 in all, by far the most by any single author) were set by Rigdon McIntosh this time. In the list above, however, we see the first appearance of another Slade/Everett perennial, "Hark, the gentle voice of Jesus falleth". Though it appears in only 38 hymnals in Hymnary.org, it is probably still immediately familiar to anyone from the Churches of Christ in the U.S. Part of this popularity is owed to its usefulness as a song for "extending the invitation" at the end of a sermon (what others may refer to as an "altar call"). Its later publishing history was typical of Slade's more successful songs--retention by the Methodist hymnals, early adoption to Cincinnati/Louisville publishers associated with the Disciples, Christian Churches, and Churches of Christ, and adoption by the Southern Baptist publishers. But her most prominent new song from this collection would become "From all the dark places", a missionary call set to music by "Emilius Laroche" (a pseudonym of Rigdon McIntosh (Oswalt 41)--Hymnary.org lists 102 hymnals with this song. It should be noted that despite Slade's progressive views, the opening lines "From all the dark places / Of earth's heathen races" betrays something of the unfortunately typical Eurocentric conception of mission work in that era; that may be why it fell out of use in the 1960s after so many years of popularity.
McIntosh issued another Sunday School book for the Southern Methodists in 1873, titled The Gem. I have not had the opportunity to examine it, but according to Oswalt this was just a compilation from the previous two (with only 12 new songs) and done in shape notes (200ff.). This undoubtedly helped Mary Slade's songs reach an even greater audience in the South. McIntosh's next "new" endeavor, however, would turn to the Northern markets, in a publication that relied even more openly on the strength of Mary Slade's writing.
Good News was publised in 1876 by the Oliver Ditson Company of Boston, one of the most prominent music publishers in the United States at the time. Oswalt provides evidence that McIntosh may have had leverage with Ditson because of an earlier copyright dispute (206-208), and that Ditson may have seen this as an opportunity to enter the Southern church music market with a recognized editor from the region (210). But McIntosh was also a proven success in producing good Sunday School music, not least because of the relationships he had built with lyricists. He noted in the preface of the work:
Most of the new hymns have been written by Mrs. Mary B. C. Slade, of Fall River, Mass., and Rev. Jos. H. Martin, of Atlanta, Ga., both of whom already occupy assured and leading positions in the hymnic literature of the country.
Mary Slade's work appears in 29 selections out of the 156 titles in Good News, and though she was exceeded in number by the aforementioned Joseph H. Martin with 35 songs, several of her new works proved to be far more lasting.
| Title | First Line | Composer |
| The one astray | Ninety nine in the safe fold abiding | R. M. McIntosh |
| Tell it again | Into the tent where a gypsy boy lay | R. M. McIntosh |
| Beautiful Christmas | O'er the hills and adown the snowy dells | R. M. McIntosh |
| Bring the children | How happy were they | R. M. McIntosh |
| Christmas carol | Once o'er Judea's hills by night | R. M. McIntosh |
| To whom shall we go? | Hear, now, the blessed Jesus | R. M. McIntosh |
| Song for Centennial Day | Let us raise a song | R. M. McIntosh |
| Our choice | Thou, O Lord, all our sin and sorrow | R. M. McIntosh |
| Knocking at the door | Who at my door is standing | A. B. Everett |
| Seeking | What saith Jehovah, the holy one | R. M. McIntosh |
| Free waters | There's a fountain free | A. B. Everett |
| Hear Him calling | Are you staying, safely staying | A. B. Everett |
| Summer land | Beyond this land of parting | A. B. Everett |
| Loved one, farewell | Birds are rejoicing | A. B. Everett |
| Follow thou me | If I, like Galilee fishers | A. B. Everett |
| "Whosoever" | O'er the desert and dreary way | A. B. Everett |
One notable feature of this group is the strong contribution by Asa Everett. Looking at Slade's total output as recorded in Hymnary.org, Everett was the most frequent composer for her hymn lyrics after George F. Root, and she was the most frequently set author in Everett's output. McIntosh noted in the preface of Good News that Everett's death in late 1875 had interrupted the completion of the volume for a time, so perhaps it had been planned for Everett to compose even more of Slade's texts.
The most widely popular of these new songs (by number of instances recorded in Hymnary.org) was one I had never heard of: "Into the tent where a gypsy boy lay", with music by Rigdon McIntosh, appearing in 95 hymnals. A missionary song like "From all the dark places", it avoids some of the more overt condescension of the former but falls into the 19th-century poetic trope of the dying child. (To her credit, Slade more often than not avoided the overwrought sentimentality of popular lyrics in her era.) The next most popular of this batch of songs would be the perennial "Who at my door is standing" (88 instances in Hymnary.org), set to music by Asa B. Everett. Less widely used, but successful enough to still be sung today, were "Beyond this land of parting" and "There's a fountain free", also set by Everett.
Rigdon McIntosh published another Sunday School book with Ditson in 1881, but with a much smaller contribution by Mary Slade--only 7 new songs and 2 reprints. It was their final active collaboration, for Slade's health was failing; we know at least that she was ill for "many months" prior to her her death on 15 April 1882. According to her obituary in Boston University's Journal of Education (for which she had edited a department), Slade was in the process of putting together another volume of her own Sunday School material and devoted her final months to that unfinished work ("Current events" 255). In addition to touching tributes in her home town, Mary B. C. Slade's death was noted in the Boston Globe (15 April 1882, page 4), The Brooklyn Union (15 April 1882, page 4), and The Montreal Star (17 April 1882, page 2). Thus came too soon to a close, at the age of 56, of a busy career of service to children's education.
But her songs, of course, live on. Though the death of Rigdon McIntosh in 1899 seems to have ended the preferential use of her songs in Methodist songbooks, her work became enough a part of the Methodist repertoire that it crossed over from Sunday School songbooks to the official hymnal. The Methodist Hymnal editions of 1905 and 1935, published jointly by the Northern and Southern denominations prior to their reunification, included her missionary song "From all the dark places". And though her songs did not appear in the 1966 Methodist Hymnal or the 1981 United Methodist Hymnal, the popular Cokesbury Hymnal (1923) included "Sweetly, Lord, have we heard Thee calling", as did Spiritual Life Songs (1930) and Upper Room Hymns (1942), jointly published by Cokesbury and Abingdon presses.
Mary Slade's songs simultaneously fanned out beyond denominational borders into the burgeoning gospel music publishing in the North, and into the growing shape-note gospel tradition in the South. Two of her earlier works appeared in the six-part Biglow & Main Gospel Hymns series edited variously by Ira Sankey, Philip Bliss, and James McGranahan, and one of these, "With His dear and loving care" with music by James Murray, appeared in One Hundred Select Gospel Hymns in 1883. The missionary song "Into the tent where a gypsy boy lay" appeared in several late 19th-century publications by the John J. Hood Company in Philadelphia, edited by John R. Sweney, William J. Kirkpatrick, Tullius O'Kane, and others.
It was among the Disciples of Christ, Christian Churches, and Churches of Christ, however, that Slade's songs found the widest and most lasting popularity. Though the Christian Hymnal (descended from Alexander Campbell's venerable Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs) was still the "unofficial-official" hymnal in the immediate post-war era, the lack of a central organization meant that congregations adopted whatever was available and appealing, whether as supplementary to the Hymn Book or as a substitute. In addition to the Central Book Concern in Cincinnati (later the Bethany Press, then the Chalice Press), hymnals for these churches were often published by the religious papers, such as Christian Standard (Standard Publishing, Cincinnati), Christian Guide (Guide Publishing, Louisville, Kentucky), and Christian-Evangelist (Christian Publishing, St. Louis) (Mott 80). There were also significant contributions by independent music editors and publishers such as the Fillmores of Cincinnati, who issued hymnals and Sunday School books for their own brethren as well as a broader range of school and choral music (Wakefield).
Who at my door is standing
Beyond this land of partingFrom all the dark placesIf I like Galilee fishersAre you staying, safely stayingPraise the LordThere's a beautiful placeWe are marching to Canaan
Among the publishers later associated with the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ (instrumental), however, her songs were taken up more enthusiastically. Popular Hymns (Louisville, Kentucky, 1883), edited by Christopher Columbus Cline and later published by the Guide Publishing Company of that city, included the following songs:
Who at my door is standingHark! the gentle voiceBeyond this land of partingFrom all the dark placesIn the desert days of oldWhere the jasper walls are beaming
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| C. C. Cline |
Cline carried over this usage of Mary Slade hymns into his editorial work for Standard Publishing of Cincinnati, which carried the imprimatur of the influential Christian Standard magazine and would become the unofficial house publisher for the Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ (instrumental). The Standard Church Hymnal (1888) included "Who at my door is standing?", "There's a wail from the islands of the sea", "Where the jasper walls are beaming", and "Rocked upon the raging billow." A companion book published the same year, the Standard Sunday School Hymnal, went much further into Mary Slade's catalog, with more of her songs than I have yet to find outside a songbook not edited by Rigdon McIntosh:
From all the dark placesIn the vineyard of the MasterRocked upon the raging billowsCome down beside the watersLiken the kingdom to the springingAs forth from the cityHear how a sower onceThe Master stood at the vineyard gateOnce a feast was madeHer sad vigil keepingThou Bethsaida, the lovelyIn the desert days of oldO I love to thinkIf I like Galilee fishersSay, who hath sorrowsThe sun is rising o'er the ocean
This regard for Mary Slade's songs would continue in Standard Publishing songbooks in the early 20th century, such as the Christian Church Hymnal (1906) edited by H. R. Christie, and though the usage dropped off as the decades went by, the Favorite Hymns songbooks of mid-century still carried "Sweetly, Lord, have we heard Thee calling" and "Hark! the gentle voice".
The conservative acappella congregations, predominantly Southern and later to be identified as the Churches of Christ, generally used publications from Standard Publishing or the Fillmore Bros. in the post-Civil War era (Bowman 57). But as the 19th century drew to a close, the rift over the evolving role of the American Christian Missionary Society (which controlled the Christian Hymnal following the death of Alexander Campbell), and the growing discord between Isaac Errett of the Christian Standard and David Lipscomb of the Gospel Advocate, caused the conservatives to sour on the Cincinnati publishers and seek their own hymnal. Lipscomb, in fact, had retained the services of C. C. Cline as early as 1884 to edit such a songbook, but after numerous delays Cline instead threw in his lot with Errett as editor of the Standard Church Hymnal and Standard Sunday School Hymnal.
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| David Lipscomb |
Sweetly, Lord, have we heard Thee callingWho at my door is standing?Hark! the gentle voiceBeyond this land of partingThere's a fountain freeFrom all the dark placesThere's a beautiful placeI've stayed till lateAre you staying, safely stayingRocked upon the raging billowIn the desert, days of oldLook abroad o'er the fieldsLiken the kingdom to the springingThe ninety and nineAs forth from the citySay, who hath sorrowWhere the jasper walls are beamingSay, have you readIn the vineyard of the MasterTo the heavenly JerusalemOnce a feast was madeThere's a wail from the islands of the seaPraise the Lord! Praise the Lord!Once, forth to meet the bridegroom
In the 1920s the hymnal business at Gospel Advocate fell to the able hands of Charles Mitchell Pullias, a noted preacher and writer who was also a gifted song leader. Pullias continued the strong representation of Mary Slade's songs in Choice Gospel Hymns (1923) with the following lyrics:
Sweetly, Lord, have we heard Thee callingWho at my door is standing?Hark! the gentle voiceThere's a fountain freeFrom all the dark placesThere's a beautiful placeAre you stayingWhere the jasper walls are beaming
Sweetly, Lord, have we heard Thee callingWho at my door is standing?Hark! the gentle voiceBeyond this land of partingThere's a fountain free
All five would appear in later hymnals from a variety of publishers:
New Wonderful Songs for Work and Worship (Firm Foundation, 1938)Standard Gospel Songs (Tillit S. Teddlie, 1940?)Gospel Songs and Hymns (Will W. Slater, 1944)Sacred Selections for the Church (ed. Ellis J. Crum, 1956)The Hymnal (Marion Davis Co., 1957)Majestic Hymnal no. 2 (Firm Foundation, 1959)Christian Hymnal (ed. J. Nelson Slater, 1963)The Great Christian Hymnal (ed. Tillit S. Teddlie, 1965)Songs of the Church (Howard Publishing, 1977)Church Gospel Songs & Hymns (ed. V. E. Howard, 1986)Hymns for Worship (ed. R. J. Stevens & Dane K. Shepard, 1988)Praise for the Lord (Praise Press, 1992)Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs (Sumphonia, 2012)
I would list Songs of Faith and Praise (Howard Publishing, 1994) as well, but it inexplicably omits "Who at my door is standing?", perhaps through editorial oversight.
What enabled Mary Slade's songs to catch on, and to continue in use for so long? I can suggest a variety of reasons:
- Her language is direct and simple, but not childish. Slade was writing for youth, and mostly avoided the rhetorical flourishes of Victorian poetry, but she also avoided "cutesiness" and talking down to her readers. Her lyrics are understandable to children and still relevant to adults.
- She wrote close to Scriptural subjects, often with specific Scripture readings in mind, and led the reader to make application. When Jesus said "Follow Me," what might that require us to do? When He said, "I stand at the door and knock," what will be our answer?
- She often captured a certain spiritual longing, yet without becoming maudlin. In "There's a fountain free" the inclusiveness of the gospel call combines with a weariness and longing for rest and fellowship: "'Tis for you and me, and its stream I see / Let us hasten joyfully there." The third stanza of "Who at my door is standing?" plaintively expresses the frustration of a struggling believer, asking, "Jesus, art Thou not weary / Waiting so long for me?"
- Many of her best lyrics were set to attractive, singable, and appropriate music by Asa B. Everett, who will be the subject of a later post.
In closing this review of some of the contributions of this remarkable lady, I can do no better than to quote from her obituary in Boston University's Journal of Education, a department of which she edited for a number of years. Her peers noted her editorial work and contributions to teaching material, and closed their tribute with the thought-provoking observation that, "Her life was so full of good works that we cannot call it short" ("Current events" 255). May we all live lives of such usefulness, to be so remembered!
References:
"Albion King Slade", FamilySearch. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/LHKS-LT6
Blood, William W. Apostle of Reason: a Biography of Joseph Krauskopf. Philadelphia: Dorrance & Co., 1973. https://kenesethisrael.org/sites/default/files/uploaded_documents/apostle_of_reason_-_krauskopf_-_12_0.pdf
Borden, Alanson. Our Country And Its People: a Descriptive And Biographical Record of Bristol County, Massachusetts. [Boston]: Boston History Company, 1899. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009833153/
Bowman, John. Sweetly the Tones are Falling: a Hymnal History of Churches of Christ. Brentwood, Tennessee: Penmann Press, 1984.
Borden, Alanson. Our Country And Its People: a Descriptive And Biographical Record of Bristol County, Massachusetts. [Boston]: Boston History Company, 1899. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009833153/
Bowman, John. Sweetly the Tones are Falling: a Hymnal History of Churches of Christ. Brentwood, Tennessee: Penmann Press, 1984.
A Centennial History of Fall River, Mass. New York: Atlantic Publishing, 1877.
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t0000rt2m
Champlin, Kenneth. The Underground Railroad in Fall River, supplemented by the Fall River Historical Society. https://lizzieborden.org/exhibits/black-history-month-2017/
"Current events." Journal of Education (Boston University, School of Education), vol. 15, no. 16 (20 April 1882), page 255. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/umn.31951000712620i?urlappend=%3Bseq=265%3Bownerid=13510798902710298-284
The Emerald, edited by Atticus G. Haygood and R. M. McIntosh. Nashville, Tennessee: Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1873. https://archive.org/details/emeson00hayg/
Fall River, Massachusetts. School Committee. Report of the General School Committee of the town of Fall River, 1845-46. Accessed via Sabin Americana Collection, Galenet.org.
Fowler, Orin. History of Fall River: With Notices of Freetown And Tiverton. Fall River, Massachusetts: Almy & Milne, Printers, 1862. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008733076/
Good News, edited by Rigdon McIntosh. Boston: Oliver Ditson Co., 1876. https://archive.org/details/goodnewsorsongst00mcin
Gross, Jeanne Bilger. Benjamin Russel Hanby, Ohio Composer-Educator, 1833-1867: His Contributions to Early Music Education. Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1987.
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu148758461216499&disposition=attachment
Hall, J. H. Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1914.
https://archive.org/details/biographyofgospe00hall/
Harp, Scott. "Charles Mitchell Pullias." History of the Restoration Movement. https://www.therestorationmovement.com/_states/texas/pullias,cm.htm
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