Daniel W. Whittle: Man & Myth

Daniel Webster Whittle (1840-1901) was a traveling evangelist during the great wave of urban revivals in the U.S. and U.K. during the late 1800s, becoming nearly as famous as his long-time friend and associate Dwight L. Moody. And just as Moody had Sankey, Whittle had his songleading partners: he recruited Phillip Paul Bliss (1838-1876) as his first "singing evangelist" (Bliss Memoirs 42ff., 49), and after Bliss's untimely death, persuaded James McGranahan (1840-1907) away from his intended opera career (McGranahan obituary 6). Whittle himself contributed lyrics that have remained popular for more than a century--"I know Whom I have believed" (1883), "The banner of the cross" (1887), and "Why not now?" (1891)--but his promotion of the careers of Bliss and McGranahan ultimately had an even greater impact on the development of the late 19th-century gospel style.

In preparing to write on the song "Dying with Jesus" (or "Moment by moment"), which Whittle co-wrote with his daughter May Whittle Moody, I realized that my background material on his life was quickly growing into a lengthy post on its own. Whittle's personal story is the stuff of legend; so much so, in fact, that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction as it has been handed down through the years. One particular area of confusion is his service during the Civil War, the facts of which are dramatic enough without embellishment. I have done my best to clear up some of the details using original sources and contemporary testimony.

Daniel Webster Whittle in his younger days.
Scheips, page 7. Photo from Library of Congress.

1. Was Whittle a non-believer until he prayed with a dying soldier at Vicksburg? No. As the legend goes: Whittle was reading a Bible to pass the time while recuperating from his own injuries, and a doctor asked him to pray with a dying soldier. Whittle objected that he was not actually a Christian, but agreed to try to comfort his fellow soldier, and was so moved by the dying man's faith that he himself determined to follow Christ. In reality: Whittle himself said that when he first came to Chicago in 1857--at the age of 17!--he attended the First Congregational Church, a natural choice for the Massachusetts native. Then, in his own words, Whittle was "converted" in 1860 while attending meetings of the Young Men's Christian Association at what is today the "Chicago Temple" Methodist church. He was active in the Y.M.C.A. for many years (Historical Sketch 27).

Whittle served in the 72nd Illinois Infantry during the Civil War, and after the chaplain resigned, Whittle and others organized a Y.M.C.A. within the regiment to look to its spiritual needs (Historical Sketch 28). The muster rolls held by the Illinois State Archives show that this regiment's chaplain, Henry E. Barnes, was honorably discharged on 20 June 1863 and apparently not replaced, supporting Whittle's recollection of events (Illinois Muster Rolls).

The story of praying with the dying soldier could however be based in some fact. Whittle was indeed wounded at Vicksburg on 22 May 1863 (Illinois Muster Rolls detail report #273665). Part of his recuperation was spent back in Chicago, but he left to return to his regiment at Vicksburg on 16 June (Chicago Tribune 12 June 1863 page 4). Since the chaplain was discharged four days later, Whittle may well have been called upon to attend to the soldiers' spiritual needs after his return; and as Whittle was not formally ordained, he might well have said that he was not really qualified for chaplain duties. Finally, his presence during the remaining two weeks of the Vicksburg siege, when he was still unfit for combat and the regiment needed a chaplain, makes it likely that he did spend time praying with wounded and dying soldiers at this time.

2. Did Whittle recruit a company of soldiers, and was he their captain through the Civil War? Yes and no. Though Whittle did not volunteer at the beginning of the war, one event in particular may have moved him to reconsider--the death of his friend Daniel W. Farnham at Shiloh. The Chicago Tribune noticed shortly afterward that, "The members of the Chicago Literary Union, to which society the deceased belonged, are requested to call upon D. W. Whittle at office of the American Express Company, to make arrangements for bringing the remains of Mr. Farnham to Chicago for interment" (Chicago Tribune 15 April 1862 page 472). On 16 July Whittle was at a meeting of the Union Defense Committee, representing young men of the city interested in forming a regiment. Whittle's group set an organization meeting for 18 July at Bryan Hall, where the Y.M.C.A. met (Chicago Tribune 17 July 1862 page 4). By 8 August 1862 this drive had led to the formation of six companies, one of which was Whittle's (at that date he had registered 62 recruits). The leaders of these companies, not yet officially incorporated into the Illinois Volunteer forces, were provisionally referred to as "captains" (Chicago Tribune 8 Aug 1862 page 4).

Though the companies raised by Whittle and his associates were recruited under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A., they were consolidated with companies raised by the Chicago Board of Trade to form the 72nd Illinois Infantry, known afterward as the "Chicago Board of Trade Regiment" (Historical Sketch 28). When the regiment mustered in on 21 August the men in Company B elected Whittle one of their officers. He was actually commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, third in command under a 1st Lieutenant and the Captain (Detail report #273665). Eddy's Patriotism of Illinois records that Whittle later served as "acting adjutant" of the regiment headquarters staff (469); the muster rolls of the headquarters company show that the original adjutant, Ebenezer Bacon, passed away on 16 January 1863 (Illinois Muster Rolls). Whittle was promoted to 1st Lieutenant of Company B on 10 June 1863, following his leadership in the 22 May assault on Vicksburg (Detail report #273664).

During the regiment's reorganization after its heavy casualties at Vicksburg, Whittle was promoted to Captain (this time as a fully commissioned officer) and placed in command of Company G on 15 August 1863. He remained on the rolls of the 72nd Illinois Infantry through the end of the war and was discharged 7 August 1865 (Detail report #273666). Whittle was not with them, however, the entire time; on 11 June 1864 he was appointed Assistant Provost Marshal-General of the headquarters staff of General Otis O. Howard, who was soon to be commander of the Army of the Tennessee (OR 38/4:461). Whittle was, however, in the field with the 72nd Illinois during one of its bloodiest days of fighting--22 May 1863 at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

3. Did Whittle lose his arm in combat? No. At Vicksburg on 22 May 1863 the 72nd Illinois Infantry was part of Thomas Ransom's Brigade in McPherson's XVII Corps, the middle of three corps facing Vicksburg's fortifications from the east (Battle and Siege of Vicksburg). After an unsuccessful assault on 19 May, General Grant ordered a second attempt on 22 May. At one point Ransom's Brigade on the extreme right of McPherson's XVII Corps joined with Giles Smith's Brigade on the extreme left of Sherman's XV Corps, and made an attempt on the Confederate defenses between Graveyard Road and Jackson Road. (On a personal aside, Whittle's position was almost right next to the 8th Missouri Infantry (U.S.), in which my great-great-grandfather McMannis served--he was taken ill before Vicksburg, however, and was not present. My great-great-uncle James Hamrick was in fact present, but on the other side of the fortifications with the 36th Georgia Infantry.)

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According to Adam Badeau, one of Grant's staff officers at the time, "the ground over which they passed is the most difficult about Vicksburg" (1:313-314). Things went very badly, very quickly. Two of the five regiments in the brigade lost their commanders, one killed and the other incapacitated (Eddy 469), and the loss of officers at the company level was also high. Whittle's 72nd Illinois Infantry suffered the greatest number killed overall, and its second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Wright, was mortally wounded (Rood 303-304).

According to Eddy's Patriotism of Illinois, Whittle, who was Acting Adjutant of the regiment and thus attached to the headquarters staff, "moved up to the assault with a smile, saying: 'Come on, my brave fellows, rebel bullets can not hit us!'" (Eddy 468-9). Whether these were his actual words or not, they proved incorrect. Whittle's record at the time of the engagement shows that he was "wounded at Vicksburg May 22, 1863 severely in [the] arm" (Detail report #273665). Amputation in such cases was common enough; but his new service record following his promotion to captain, 15 August 1863, says "slightly wounded at Vicksburg Miss. May 22, 1863" (Detail report #273666). Even by the standards of the iron men of those days, an amputation would have to be described as more than "slightly wounded!"

Whatever his injury, it was serious enough that he was sent home to Chicago for a couple of weeks, as evidenced by the following items in the Chicago Tribune:

A Worthy Compliment. The Chicago Literary Union, we understand, purpose giving gallant Lieut. Whittle, of the 72d Regiment, a complimentary supper, at the Briggs House, on Saturday evening of the present week. It is a compliment worthily bestowed.

For the Seventy-Second. Lieut. Whittle, of the 77d [72nd DRH], will return to his regiment, on Tuesday, next, and will take with him any letters addressed to that regiment, if left at the American Express Office by next Monday (12 June 1863 page 4).

This supports the events recounted by Jacob Hall's Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers in which Whittle, home on leave, met with Dwight Moody (not, however, for the first time, as Hall states--see Historical Sketch 27). In his own words (unfortunately not sourced), Whittle was "still weak from loss of blood and with my arm in a sling" (Hall 186). This agrees with the report of Whittle's regimental commander Colonel Staring, in a letter written the day after the battle, that Whittle was "shot through the arm" (Chicago Tribune 5 June 1863 page 2). This must have caused extensive bleeding, but if the wound was through Whittle's arm it probably did less permanent damage. It also spared him the even greater danger of having a bullet extracted by the regimental surgeon, with the attendant risk of infection! And if Hall's report of Whittle's words is accurate, his arm was "in a sling," injured but intact.

Regardless of the extent of his wounds on 22 May 1863, Whittle's actions were courageous in the face of a nearly hopeless situation. He took the lead and pressed forward, knowing that he would likely meet the same fate as the men who had gone before him. General Thomas Ransom's after-action report for his brigade noted "Adjutant Whittle" of the 72nd Illinois for special commendation (Official Records 24/2:298).

4. Was Whittle ever a prisoner of war? Not as far as I can tell. It is hard to prove a negative, of course, but becomes nigh unto impossible when the question involves prisoner-of-war status in the Civil War. The records of the prisoner-of-war camps in the Confederate States are often fragmentary or lost; there is also the possibility of capture in the field with a subsequent escape or exchange that was not documented. That said, I have found no reference to Whittle being a prisoner beyond unsourced anecdotes written in the 20th century.

There are at least two possibilities for the source of this idea. In the records made available at Civil War Prisons, 56 soldiers from Whittle's regiment, the 72nd Illinois Infantry, are listed in the prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia. All but a dozen of these were captured on 30 November 1864 at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Whittle, however, was not present at the battle, having been reassigned to the headquarters staff of General Oliver O. Howard on June 11 of that year (OR 38/4:461). At the time the 72nd Illinois was engaged at the Battle of Franklin, Whittle was with Howard's Army of the Tennessee near Clifton, Georgia (OR 44:603-604).

Another possible source of confusion is the fact that Whittle was significantly involved in the supervision of Confederate prisoners of war. On 16 July 1863, a week and a half after the surrender of Vicksburg, General Ransom sent Whittle from Natchez, Mississippi back to XVII Corps headquarters in charge of a group of Confederate prisoners of war (OR 24/2:682). Later, in his role as Assistant Provost Marshal General (supervisor of military police activities) of the Army of the Tennessee, he was responsible for overseeing the treatment of prisoners of war in custody of that command. General Howard's report dated 28 December 1864 on operations in Savannah includes this paragraph:

Capt. D. W. Whittle, assistant provost-marshal-general, receives my hearty approbation for his activity in discharging the public duties of his department, for his careful record and disposition of prisoners, and for his unremitting attention to the comfort and interest of myself and staff; while acting in his capacity of commandant of headquarters (OR 44:74-75)

General Howard was sometimes called the "Christian general" because of his strict piety and attempt to guide his command by Christian principles (Wikipedia). Howard later recalled Whittle as "my beloved staff officer and companion" (American-Spanish War 460). No doubt he found in him a kindred spirit and believed he would deal fairly with prisoners of war and with the civilian population under military occupation.

5. Was Whittle involved in Sherman's "March to the Sea?" Yes. This is confusing, because Whittle remained on the rolls of the 72nd Illinois throughout the war; and though that regiment was meant to join with Sherman's forces during October 1864, they arrived too late. The 72nd remained behind as part of a "Detachment of the Army of the Tennessee" and fought alongside the Army of the Cumberland in the Battles of Nashville and Franklin. They remained in the Western half of the theater for the duration of the war (Adjutant General Report 2:210-211).

But Whittle was on General Howard's staff from at least 11 June 1864 onward, when Howard was commanding IV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland in the early battles of the Atlanta campaign. After the death of General McPherson in late July, Sherman appointed Howard over the Army of the Tennessee, a position he held during the March to the Sea. Military correspondence from Whittle includes a letter to Howard dated 5 October 1864 from Marietta, Georgia, just north of Atlanta (OR 39/3:96), and a letter from near Savannah, Georgia on 8 January 1865 (OR 47/2:25-26), showing just how swiftly this scorched earth campaign unfolded. Whittle's letters to Howard usually passed military intelligence gleaned from his interaction with prisoners of war, deserters, and the civilian population, in the course of his duties.

The railroad cut at Allatoona Pass, inspiration for the song "Hold the fort!"
Scheips, page 3. Photo from National Archives.

6. Did Whittle witness Sherman's communications with Federal forces at Allatoona Pass, later the basis for the song "Hold the Fort"? Maybe. After the fall of Atlanta, Confederate General Hood moved to cut Sherman's supply line, particularly the railroad leading down from Chattanooga. At the beginning of October 1864 the Allatoona Pass became a crucial prize, because the high ground and narrow passage could be held at length by whichever side took the position with sufficient forces. Federal defenders being badly outnumbered at first, General Sherman sent General Corse to reinforce them, with more troops on the way. U.S. Army Signal Corpsmen atop Kennesaw Mountain communicated by flags with the Allatoona defenders, twenty miles away, to keep them apprised of the situation. Army records show that on 4 October 1864 the following message was sent: "General Sherman says hold fast. We are coming." (Scheips 1-3).

Years later, Whittle related this event as an illustration of the need for Christians to remember that, however beleaguered we may become in our fight against temptation, divine help is close at hand. Philip Bliss heard Whittle use this in a sermon, and wrote his famous song, "Hold the fort, for I am coming!" based on Whittle's recollection of the wording Sherman's message (Bliss Memoirs 68-70).

In 1971 Paul J. Scheips published a thoroughly researched study of this song, titled "Hold the fort! The story of a song from the sawdust trail to the picket line," in the series Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology. He notes that none of the three known messages signaled from Kennesaw Mountain said, "Hold the fort, I am coming," in exactly those words. Other details of Whittle's recollection were blurred as well; he gave the Federal strength at 1,500 men against 6,000 Confederates, when the true numbers were closer to 2,000 and 3,200 respectively--misremembering the odds, "as any old soldier might have done" (Scheips 9). Refining of the verbiage of a famous statement is another of the transformations a tale often undergoes in the retelling.

But could Whittle have witnessed this scene firsthand? Scheips notes that Whittle never claimed to have been at Kennesaw Mountain, though General Howard said he was; and Howard's statement was given in a letter written in 1899, more than thirty years after the event (Scheips 8-9). The U.S. Army's records of correspondence do however preserve a statement recorded by Whittle at the "Headquarters of the Department & Army of the Tennessee, in the field, near Marietta," concerning intelligence gathered from a Confederate deserter who arrived sometime after 5 p.m. on 5 October 1864 (OR 39/3:95-96). Kennesaw Mountain is a mere 5 miles from the Marietta town square, so Whittle might easily have been up to the mountain during the battle.

General Howard's autobiography, which accurately quotes nearly all of the signal messages found by Scheips in the official U.S. Army records (2:58-62), claims that Sherman sent his first messages on 4 October by dispatch from Vining's Station (southeast of Marietta) to Kennesaw Mountain, where they were signaled across to Allatoona Pass (2:57ff.). This gives a rather different but hardly surprising picture of the communication process, in which messages went through multiple hands. Whittle's presence at Howard's headquarters on the date in question makes it easily conceivable that he saw or heard the messages as they passed through the chain of command. Whether he remembered them accurately five years later is another matter!

7. Was his rank actually "Major Whittle," as he was commonly called after the war? Yes, "but." Whittle was breveted as a major by General Order 148, 14 October 1865, for "faithful and meritorious service during the campaign against the city of Mobile and its defences." (Scheips 47). "Brevet rank" was a term of considerable confusion. Officially, it was honorary, not affecting actual responsibilities or pay; but sometimes a man was breveted as a matter of decorum, especially if serving in a position usually reserved for a higher rank (for example a lieutenant commanding a company instead of a captain). Some officers held a brevet rank at the level of their actual responsibilities, but were never officially promoted, and remained a grade or two lower in official rank. The majority of brevet ranks, however, were conferred at the end of the war as rewards for meritorious service (Bielakowski).

In Whittle's case, he was mustered out of service on 7 August 1865, well after the conclusion of hostilities, as a captain in the 72nd Illinois Infantry (Detail report #273666). Since his brevet rank of major was awarded in October, he never actually served with that rank. For this reason he is sometimes referred to as "Major" Whittle (with quotes) in older sources, when the practice of post-war brevet ranks was quite familiar. His pension record with the U.S. Veterans Administration, filed July 1899, records his rank and service as "Capt., Company G, 72nd Reg., Ill. Inf. (Organization Index). This is identical to Whittle's self-identification in a notarized letter from 1868, written to support the pension application of the widow of John F. Schellhorn, one of his soldiers from Company G (Case files WC108741). Whittle's signature is pictured below, with the rank described as "Late Capt., G Co., 72nd Reg. Ill. Infy."

But in informal usage, especially when being introduced as a speaker, no doubt it was "Major Whittle" most of the time. His service as provost marshal to the Army of the Tennessee was certainly equal to the rank, even if it was never officially granted during the war, so it was nothing if not appropriate in ceremonial usage.

Uncovering the truth about some of the details of Whittle's life has proven yet again the tendency for the stories of beloved songs and beloved songwriters to "grow in the telling." The ability to access primary sources online has made it easier now to look back--however imperfectly--past the traditions and legends that grow around these things. In the case of Daniel W. Whittle, even if the truth was not quite as dramatic in some points as the legend, we find a man who exhibited courage, responsibility, and a lifelong commitment to serving the spiritual needs of his fellow human beings.

Daniel W. Whittle in his older years.
Photo from Ira Sankey, My life and the story of the Gospel Hymns
(Philadelphia: P. W. Ziegler, 1907), page 213.

---

References:

The American-Spanish War: a history by the war leaders. Norwich, Conn.: Haskell & Son, 1899.
http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009559221

Badeau, Adam. Military history of Ulysses S. Grant: from April, 1861, to April, 1865. 3 volumes. New York: Appleton, 1881.
Volume 1: http://archive.org/details/militaryhistory02badegoog
Volume 2: http://archive.org/details/militaryhistory03badegoog
Volume 3: http://archive.org/details/militaryhistory00badegoog

Battle and siege of Vicksburg, MS: May 18-July 4, 1863 (map). Civil War Trust.
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/vicksburg/maps/vicksburgmap.html

Bielakowski, Alexander M. "Brevet rank." Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: a political, social, and military history, ed. David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler. New York: Norton, 2000.

Case files of approved pension applications of widows and other veterans... 1861-1934. United States Veterans Administration. ARC Identifier 300020.

Chicago Tribune 9 November 1861 page 4. "The City."

Chicago Tribune 15 April 1862 page 472. "The City."

Chicago Tribune 29 April 1862 page 546. "Chicago Literary Union."

Chicago Tribune 17 July 1862 page 4. "Meeting of the Union Defense Committee."

Chicago Tribune 8 Aug 1862 page 4. "Progress of recruiting."

Chicago Tribune 5 June 1863 page 2. Letter from Thomas A. Staring, 23 May 1863.

Chicago Tribune 12 June 1863 page 4. "The City."

Eddy, Thomas Mears. The Patriotism of Illinois. A Record of the Civil and Military History of the State in the War for the Union. Chicago: Clarke and Co., 1865. Digital version by Northern Illinois University. http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/navigate.pl?lincoln.5050

Hall, J. H. Biography of gospel song and hymn writers. New York: Revell, 1914.
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL13503879M/Biography_of_Gospel_song_and_hymn_writers.

Historical sketch of the Young Men's Christian Association of Chicago. Chicago: Y.M.C.A., 1898.
http://www.archive.org/stream/historicalsketch00smit#page/n9/mode/2up

Howard, Oliver Otis. Autobiography, 2 volumes. New York: Baker & Taylor, 1908.

Volume 1: http://archive.org/details/autobiographyofo01inhowa
Volume 2: http://archive.org/details/autobiographyofo02inhowa

Illinois Civil War muster and descriptive rolls. Illinois State Archives.
http://www.ilsos.gov/isaveterans/civilmustersrch.jsp

"The late Major D. W. Whittle." Record of Christian work 20:4 (April 1901), 241-242. http://books.google.com/books?id=zQ0GVxoRbkIC&pg=PA241

McGranahan obituary pamphlet. http://www.archive.org/stream/jamesmcgranahanb00pitt#page/n5/mode/2up

Memoirs of Philip P. Bliss, ed. Daniel Webster Whittle. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1877.
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7061061M/Memoirs_of_Philip_P._Bliss.


Official records of the War of the Rebellion. Washington, D.C.: War Records Publication Office, 1881-1901. Online full-text version provided in the Making of America Collection, Cornell University Library.
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/moawar/waro_fulltext.html

"Oliver O. Howard." Wikipedia. Viewed 28 January 2013. (Citations provided in article.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_O._Howard

Organization index to pension files of veterans who served between 1861 and 1900. United States Veterans Administration. ARC Identifier 2588825.

Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Illinois, 9 volumes. Springfield, Ill.: Phillips Bros., 1900.
http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000050178

Rood, Hosea W. Wisconsin at Vicksburg. Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin-Vicksburg Monument Commission, 1914.
http://books.google.com/books?id=1JxAAAAAYAAJ

Scheips, Paul J. Hold the fort! The story of a song from the sawdust trail to the picket line. Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971. http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/HistoryTechnology/pdf_hi/SSHT-0009.pdf

"Whittle, Daniel W." (Record #273664). Illinois Civil War detail reports. Illinois State Archives. http://www.ilsos.gov/isaveterans/civilMusterSearch.do?key=273664

"Whittle, Daniel W." (Record #273665). Illinois Civil War detail reports. Illinois State Archives.

http://www.ilsos.gov/isaveterans/civilMusterSearch.do?key=273665

"Whittle, Daniel W." (Record #273666). Illinois Civil War detail reports. Illinois State Archives. 

http://www.ilsos.gov/isaveterans/civilMusterSearch.do?key=273666

"The Fruit of Our Lips:" A Cappella Praise through the Centuries (Part 4)

In this series I am attempting to give a rudimentary overview of the practice of a cappella singing in Christian worship down through the centuries, using examples where possible to illustrate the survivals of this practice. Prior installments have looked at a cappella singing from the early church through the Middle Ages, continuing a cappella holdovers in the Catholic, early Anglican, and Russian Orthodox traditions, and a cappella singing in the Waldensian, Lollard, and Anabaptist churches. In this post we will look at a cappella singing in the Calvinist Reformation, and in similar movements within the English and Scottish Reformation.

Jean Calvin and the Reform of Worship

Jean Calvin (1509-1564) is one of those figures with whom I must often respectfully disagree. Respectfully, because he was undoubtedly a first-rate intellect even in an era of intellectual giants. But disagreeing, because I believe the main thrust of his teaching--the "five points"--shoehorns God's nature and interaction with humankind into a humanly devised (thus inherently limited) framework. Calvinism is logical, terrifyingly so, but it eventually leads to conclusions out of harmony with what God has plainly revealed. That said, Calvin took an enormous step forward by calling church traditions to heel in light of the Scriptures. He understood the tendency of humanity to veer away from God's will, and the necessity of returning to God's will by following the revealed Word. In his Necessity of Reforming the Church, presented to the Diet of Speyer in 1544, Calvin states:

For there is a two-fold reason why the Lord, in condemning and prohibiting all fictitious worship, requires us to give obedience to his own voice. First, it tends greatly to establish His authority that we do not follow our own pleasure, but depend entirely on his sovereignty; and, secondly, such is our folly, that when we are left at liberty, all we are able to do is to go astray (Calvin Necessity 10).

In the last sentence we see Calvin's doctrine of total depravity, to be sure; but considering the history of God's people presented to us in Scripture "for our learning" (Romans 15:4), he has a point. Time and again, godly prophets, kings, and apostles had to return the people to God's Word, including His will about worship. Calvin's view on worship is often called the "Regulative Principle" in Reformed circles, because it acknowledges that it is God's place to regulate worship, and our place to obey His expressed will without addition or subtraction.

As the Christian world at large has moved farther away both in time and in temperament from the fervor of the Reformation, Calvin's views on music have fallen on hard times. By the end of the 19th century, the opinion of Douen (one of the pioneer scholars on the Genevan Psalter) was held as gospel: Calvin was the "enemy of all pleasure and of all distraction, even of the arts and of music" (Clement Marot et le psautier huguenot, quoted in Garside 6). Garside astutely points out, however, that, "Calvin very rarely, if indeed ever, wrote about music independently of its relationship specifically to public communal worship or the praise of God in general" (Garside 6). Like Zwingli, Calvin could separate an appreciation of the art of music itself from the consideration of its proper use in Christian worship. In the "Epistle to the Reader" that prefaced his 1542 La forme des prieres et chantz ecclesiastiques (Form of prayers and ecclesiastical songs) he stated:

There is a great difference between the music which one makes to entertain men at table and in their homes, and the Psalms which are sung in the Church in the presence of God and His angels (quoted in Garside 18).

Contrary to the view that Calvin was "anti-music," in fact his first comprehensive statement on the subject was unreservedly positive:

Furthermore it is a thing most expedient for the edification of the church to sing some Psalms in the form of public prayers by which one prays to God or sings His praises so that the hearts of all may be aroused and stimulated to make similar prayers and to render similar praises and thanks to God with a common love (Geneva Articles, quoted in Garside 7-8).

He was equally firm in his grounding of this practice in New Testament Scripture and practice:

The Psalms . . . we wish to be sung in the church as we have it from the example of the ancient church and also the testimony of Saint Paul, who says that it is good to sing in the congregation with mouth and heart (Geneva Articles, quoted in Garside 10).

Finding a path of safety within God's will marked Calvin's approach to worship from the start; it was probably his fear of doctrinal error creeping in through the church's singing that caused him ultimately to exclude any texts from being sung except for the Psalms and a few of the other poetic passages found in Scripture.

Charles Garside has shown that Calvin's embrace of congregational singing in the Apostolic tradition was likely influenced by Martin Bucer, an earlier reformer in Strasbourg. During the 1520s Bucer introduced congregational Psalm-singing in between each of the other acts of worship, not unlike the common practice among Churches of Christ today. Bucer detailed this practice in his Grund und Ursach auss gotlicher Schrifft (Justification and demonstration from Holy Scripture) of 1524, the title of which is itself instructive. He added in the conclusion of his discussion of congregational singing: "in this we know that we are following the teaching of the Spirit of God" (Garside 11).

Calvin and Bucer were on friendly terms, though of different languages; after Calvin was expelled from Geneva in 1538, Bucer helped him to establish a French-speaking congregation in Strasbourg. Here was ample opportunity for Calvin to observe the impact of congregational singing on worship, and by the time of his return to Geneva in 1541 he was an ardent champion of congregational psalmody (Catholic encyclopedia).

The two men seem to have differed, however, in their teaching on the use of musical instruments. Bucer says in his preface to the Neue Straßburgische Gesangbüchlein:

Music, all singing and playing (which above all things are capable of moving our spirits powerfully and ardently), should be used in no other way except for sacred praise, teaching, and admonition. . . . Music, as in other things, has been placed before and directed to God our Father, so that absolutely no song and no instrumentalizing may be sung and used except by and for Christian spiritual activities (quoted in Garside 30).

Bucer seems to present a rather extreme version of the familiar arguments that "All of life is worship," and "Why would God give me this talent if I am not meant to use it to His glory?" Without digressing too far into this topic, I would just point out that although all of life should be lived worshipfully, in reverent respect for God's will and to His glory, to claim on this ground that there is no difference between the activities of everyday life and the worship assembly commanded in Scripture is facetious. And though there are many activities (such as athletic contests or musical performances) that can glorify God by encouraging the pursuit of excellence, providing wholesome entertainment, and celebrating the talents God has given, this alone does not make them appropriate for the worship assembly.

Calvin, on the other hand, showed no such equivocation. In his commentary on Psalm 71:22, he explains:

To sing the praises of God upon the harp and psaltery unquestionably formed a part of the training of the law, and of the service of God under that dispensation of shadows and figures; but they are not now to be used in public thanksgiving. We are not, indeed, forbidden to use, in private, musical instruments, but they are banished out of the churches by the plain command of the Holy Spirit, when Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14:13, lays it down as an invariable rule, that we must praise God, and pray to Him only in a known tongue (Calvin Psalms volume 3).

The latter point is an unusual and thought-provoking argument about the nature of language, music, and communication. Paul of course was not talking about playing instruments, but about speaking in unknown tongues (languages not familiar to the assembly). In verse 9 of the same chapter he explains, "So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air." But the problem Paul identified did touch on singing as well. In verses 14-15 he says,

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.

According to Paul, an unknown language would be just as inappropriate in song; the praising, thanksgiving, teaching, and admonishing taught in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 6 are expressed in understandable verbal communication, "with . . . mind also." If musical instruments in worship are not praising, thanksgiving, teaching or admonishing, what part do they have in Christian worship music? This brings up the question of what instrumental music communicates on its own, a debate of long standing in Western aesthetics. Many of the 19th-century Romantics believed that purely instrumental music was a form of expression even higher than the spoken word; E. T. A. Hoffmann, for example, said that "vocal music excludes the character of indefinite longing and represents the emotions, which come from the realm of the infinite, only by the definite affects of words." Or, put the other way round, purely musical expression lacks the (comparatively) specific signification of verbal communication. Paul's argument against using unknown tongues in worship rests on the need to communicate with one another not only in the spirit but in the understanding, and thus Calvin may have a point in bringing this passage into the argument against instrumental music in worship.

In his commentary on Psalm 81:3, Calvin covers more familiar territory:

With respect to the tabret, harp, and psaltery, we have formerly observed, and will find it necessary afterwards to repeat the same remark, that the Levites, under the law, were justified in making use of instrumental music in the worship of God; it having been His will to train His people, while they were as yet tender and like children, by such rudiments, until the coming of Christ. But now when the clear light of the gospel has dissipated the shadows of the law, and taught us that God is to be served in a simpler form, it would be to act a foolish and mistaken part to imitate that which the prophet enjoined only upon those of his own time (Calvin Psalms volume 3).

There is one passage from Calvin's writings that seems to muddy these waters: his commentary on Colossians 3:16. In his discussion of the phrase, "Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs," he says:

Under these three terms [Paul] includes all kinds of songs. They are commonly distinguished in this way--that a Psalm is that, in the singing of which some musical instrument besides the tongue is made use of; a hymn is properly a song of praise, whether it be sung simply with the voice or otherwise; while an ode contains not merely praises, but exhortations and other matters. He would have the songs of Christians, however, to be spiritual, not made up of frivolities and worthless trifles (Calvin Philippians Colossians & Thessalonians).

Here I believe Calvin was speaking merely of technical distinctions between types of songs existing in the 1st century, at least as he understood them; if he were commending the use of instruments, it would run counter to the much plainer statements cited previously, and to the practices in the churches under his guidance. Neither is his statement about instrumental accompaniment in these genres particularly accurate. In Paul's era the Psalms were only sung accompanied in Temple worship, but were sung a cappella in synagogues across the ancient world. By contrast, the hymns and odes of pagan Greek and Roman worship were nearly always accompanied.

The Genevan Psalter

When Calvin returned to Geneva in 1541--this time to stay, and with virtually undisputed authority in church practices--he immediately set to work building a repertoire of French-language psalms and tunes for congregational use. The result was the Genevan Psalter, which came out in stages beginning in 1542 and reached a complete form in 1562. The importance of this work can hardly be overstated. Walter Blankenburg noted that in the three years following the publication of the complete Psalter in 1562, "not less than 63 recorded editions were published, undoubtedly a unique event in the history of Protestant hymnals"(quoted in Garside, 5). In its final form it included all 150 Psalms and the traditional canticles such as the Song of Mary (Luke 1:46-55). It was particularly abundant in provision of tunes, with 125 different melodies available for use (Slenk 349).

The texts of the Genevan Psalter came from a somewhat unexpected venue--the court of the French king Francis I. Clément Marot, a prominent poet in the royal retinue, first began writing French paraphrases of the Psalms for court entertainment and private use, but Calvin found them to be just the thing for congregational singing by the common people as well. Marot fled to Geneva in 1542 because of persecution for his Protestant beliefs, and was employed in the translating of the Psalter until his death in 1544. The theologian Théodore de Bèze completed the remaining part of this work (Slenk 348).

The person most associated with the music in the Genevan Psalter is Loys Bourgeois, who taught music in Geneva from 1545-1552. He is only known to have edited the music for the 1551 edition, and claimed sole credit for only 38 of the 85 tunes in that work. (By comparison, the 1562 edition of the Psalter introduced 40 new tunes by the enigmatic "Maître (Master) Pierre.") But Bourgeois's editorial oversight was far-reaching, shaping the entire concept of what a Psalm tune should be (Slenk 348-9). One of his tunes is still known around the world even today--OLD 100TH, which is included in Praise for the Lord no fewer than three times (#17 "All people that on earth do dwell," #64 "Before Jehovah's awful throne," and #528 "Praise God from whom all blessings flow"). This tune was actually Psalm 134 in the Genevan Psalter, but English-language psalters quickly matched it instead with William Kethe's translation of the 100th Psalm, "All people that on earth do dwell."

Bourgeois's melodic style is simple, sturdy, and spare, using only one note for each syllable, and only two different note lengths throughout. This served two purposes: it made the tunes easy to sing, and it kept the worshipers from being distracted from the words by the music itself (Trocmé-Latter 337). Many historians have suggested that the Genevan Psalter music was adapted from popular music of the day, but though a number of prominent composers made settings of the Psalter tunes in popular styles, few of the melodies themselves show evidence of secular origin (Slenk 349-351).

One such tune that has been much debated is PSALM 42 (see PFTL #109 "Comfort, comfort ye my people"), which some suggest is derived from the tune of "Ne l’oseray je dire" found in the c. 1510 Bayeux Manuscript (Hymnal 1982 3:127). The comparison does not quite convince me, but there is very much of the popular Italian frottola style in PSALM 42. With its bouncy alternation between 6/8 and 3/4 time, it is not hard to imagine Queen Elizabeth's condemnation of these "Geneva jigs" in comparison to the high-church style of her Chapel Royal (Owens). (Though the note values in the example below are the equivalent of the modern whole and half notes, the tempos were not slow; the semibreve or "whole note" gets the beat.)

Pidoux, Le psautier huguenot, 51. 

Bourgeois's comments in the 1551 Psalter indicate, however, that he did use well known melodies from the Catholic plainchant tradition (Trocmé-Latter 338-339). One obvious borrowing is found in PSALM 80, which is adapted from the medieval Easter sequence "Victimae Paschali laudes."


Pidoux, Le psautier huguenot, 81.

 As can be seen in the examples above, the Genevan Psalter tunes were originally written without any parts. Only unison singing was accepted in public worship in Geneva at that time, once again to avoid distractions from the words (Trocme'-Latter 337). Outside of the worship assembly, however, it was acceptable to sing in parts, and arrangements of these tunes for multiple voices soon became popular. The 16th century saw the birth of the music publishing industry, and the rising middle class had a voracious demand for printed music for amateur entertainment. Given the racy nature of many popular songs of the day--nothing is new under the sun!--it was thought better to encourage the singing of spiritual songs at home and in social gatherings.

Bourgeois himself arranged some of the Psalm tunes for four voices; and following the completion of the 1562 Psalter, Claude Goudimel actually wrote three different four-voice settings of the entire book--all 125 tunes! The most basic kind of arrangement simply harmonized the melody using the same rhythm in all voices, one note per syllable; more advanced styles included rhythmic decoration of this basic structure or even a fully contrapuntal treatment in the manner of a motet (Slenk 350-351). The first of these methods became the default style for a cappella Psalms and (much later) hymns, and is the "hymn style" most people associate with congregational part-singing to this day. The music in the following video is Goudimel's setting of PSALM 42 in this simple fashion, sung with the text "Comfort, comfort ye my people." (Performance by the Chapel Choir of Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario.)

Singing the Psalm tunes in parts became so popular that Marcus van Vaernewijck, chronicling events in Ghent during the 1560s, said that "these Psalms appealed to the members of the new religion so much that in the evening they would gather in groups of two to three hundred and sing them in different streets and alleys of the city" (quoted in Slenk 353). Composers of the first rank--Janequin, Arcadelt, Le Jeune, and Lassus--wrote entire volumes of arrangements of these tunes (Slenk 351). The video below is a motet setting of the OLD 100TH tune by the Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, sung by Doulce memoire. The tune is heard in the tenor voice in somewhat longer notes, supported by imitative voices that elaborate on ideas from the melody.

Eventually, of course, the Calvinists allowed part-singing in worship. The seriousness with which they resisted innovation in worship, however, can be seen in an incident connected to Bourgeois's editing of the 1551 Psalter. In the process of compilation he altered a few notes of the traditional tunes in the interest of making them easier to sing. On 3 December 1551, Bourgeois was arrested by the Geneva authorities for having "changed the melodies without permission." Calvin defended his corrections and secured his release, but not before Bourgeois had spent a night in jail (Trocmé-Latter 337).

The Impact of Geneva Psalmody on the European Continent

Wherever Calvin's doctrines went, Geneva psalmody went as well; collections of Marot's Psalms, sometimes with Geneva tunes, appeared in Antwerp as early as 1541. A cappella congregational psalmody was so associated with the underground Reformed churches in the Netherlands that the Catholic Habsburg rulers actually forbade the public singing of Psalms! Still the practice of psalmody spread during the 16th century, even during periods when it was punishable by death (Slenk 353).

In the French-speaking Low Countries the Genevan Psalter quickly caught on. Dutch-speaking Reformed groups had a home-grown psalter in the Souterliedekens ("Little psalter songs"), first published in Antwerp in 1540, but this eventually was overshadowed by the Geneva tradition (Slenk 354-5). The following video begins with a solo rendition of the "Lofzang van Zacharias" (Luke 1:68-79) from the Souterliedekens. The secular song at 0:55 is believed to be the source of the tune. The four-part setting at 4:50 is by Gherardus Mes, and is here performed a cappella up until 6:00.

In German lands, most Reformed churches adopted Ambrosius Lobwasser's adaptation of the Genevan Psalter, the long-lived Psalter des königlichen Propheten Davids. This achieved such popularity that it was even used by some Lutheran congregations (Slenk 356-7). A similar adaptation in for the Hungarian Reformed churches was prepared by Albert Szenci Molnár, known as the Genfi Zsoltar (Koyzis). The following video is the 89th Psalm sung to one of Claude Goudimel's four-part settings by young people of the Reformed Church in Nagykőrös, Hungary.

Conclusion

For more than two centuries, the heirs of Calvin on the European continent held to a cappella Psalm-singing; but over the course of the 19th century the organ was reintroduced. Compared to the polemics produced by the instrumental music controversy in the U.K. and U.S., sources and scholarship on this trend on the Continent are quite scant. In his La protestantisme et la musique, Bernard Reymond notes that organs were used sporadically by a few Swiss congregations in the late 18th century, but were by far the exception until the second half of the 19th century (110).

The mixture of reactions at that time was interesting: though some objected on the same grounds that Calvin had expressed, others seem to have been more concerned that instrumental music would discourage congregational singing, or that it was a return to Catholicism, or that it was a break with tradition (Reymond 108-9). These concerns proved true in varying degrees, but essentially surrendered the fundamental question of the need for Scriptural authority.

The impact of Reformed psalmody during the 16th century was also felt keenly in the British Isles, and by extension in the North American colonies in the following century. The next post in this series will address the a cappella church music practices that emerged in these lands, many of which survive to this day.

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References:

Garside, Charles, Jr. "The origins of Calvin's theology of music: 1536-1543." Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, volume 69 number 4 (August 1979), pages 1-36. (Available with a free user account at www.jstor.org/stable/1006143.)

Calvin, Jean. Commentary on the book of Psalms, 5 volumes, translated by James Anderson. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845-49.

Electronic version by Christian Classics Ethereal Library: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom08.toc.html (volume 1) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom09.toc.html (volume 2) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom10.toc.html (volume 3) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom11.toc.html (volume 4) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom12.toc.html (volume 5)

Calvin, Jean. Commentaries on the epistles of Paul to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, translated by John Pringle. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1851. Electronic version by Christian Classics Ethereal Library: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom42

Calvin, Jean. The Necessity of Reforming the Church (Diet of Speyer, 1544), translated by H. Beveridge. London: W. H. Dalton, 1843. http://books.google.com/books?id=VskDAAAAQAAJ

Hoffmann, E. T. A. "Beethoven's instrumental music" (1813). Electronic version by Cengage Learning. http://academic.cengage.com/music/book_content/049557273X_wrightSimms_DEMO/assets/ITOW/7273X_INT_07_ITOW_Hoffmann.pdf

Hymnal 1982 companion, ed. Raymond F. Glover. New York: Church Pension Fund, 1994.

"John Calvin." Catholic encyclopedia. Online edition 2009. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03195b.htm

Koyzis, David. "Genfi Zsoltar: the Psalms in Hungarian." The Geneva Psalter. http://genevanpsalter.blogspot.com/2011/01/genfi-zsoltar-psalms-in-hungarian.html

Owens, Michael E. "The Geneva Psalter." 2008. From The Genevan Psalter Resource Center. http://www.genevanpsalter.com/articles/206-owens-intro

Pidoux, Pierre. Le psautier huguenot du XVIe siècle. Mélodies et documents. Basel: Bärenreiter, 1962. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL23364341M/Le_psautier_huguenot_du_XVIe_si%C3%A8cle.

Reymond, Bernard. Le protestantisme et la musique. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2002. 

Slenk, Howard. "Psalms, metrical, II: The European continent." The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians, 20 volumes. London: MacMillan, 1980, 15:348-358.

Trocmé-Latter, Daniel. "'May those who know nothing be content to listen': Loys Bourgeois's Advertissement to the Psalms (1551)." Reformation & Renaissance Review 11/3 (2009), 335-347.

Do You Know My Jesus?

PFTL #125

Words: V. B. Vep Ellis, 1957 (stanzas); William F. Lakey, 1956 (chorus)
Music: William F. Lakey, 1956; arranged by V. B. Vep Ellis, 1957

Vesphew Benton Ellis (1917-1988), who went by the nickname "Vep," was one of the most prolific gospel songwriters of the modern era. The Hymnary.org database lists 107 songs to his credit, and he is estimated by one count to have written over 500.(Slaughter) He was a minister of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) for nearly half a century, and served as music director for the well-known televangelist Oral Roberts.(Southern Gospel History) A search of Worldcat.org reveals that Ellis edited gospel songbooks for the Tennessee Music Company during the 1940s and 1950s, and that several albums of his songs have been recorded by the chorus of Lee University. Both institutions are located in Cleveland, Tennessee and are historically associated with the Church of God.

From the frequency of their occurrence in hymnals (Hymnary.org) and in recordings (Southern Gospel History), Ellis's most popular songs appear to be "The love of God," "I'm free again," and "Over the moon." "Do you know my Jesus?" runs close behind these. It has been recorded by classic gospel quartets such as the Blackwood Brothers, the Stamps Quartet, the Chuck Wagon Gang, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Statesmen, and the Kingsmen.(Southern Gospel History) Allmusic.com also lists recordings of this song by country artists such as Skeeter Davis and Don Gibson, as well as gospel standard-bearers such as George Beverly Shea and the Gaithers.

William F. "Bill" Lakey was a songwriter (primarily a lyricist) associated with Ellis in the Tennessee Music Company. Hymnary.org lists about two dozen songs by Lakey, most of them appearing in these songbooks from that publisher: Songs of the Redeemed (1955), Billows of Love (1957), Echoes of Calvary (1958), and Forward in Faith (1959). Records of the U.S. Copyright Office show that Lakey co-wrote at least nine other songs with Vep Ellis, and continued his work with the Tennessee Music Company through the 1960s. If the Copyright Office catalog's "Lakey, Bill" and "Lakey, W. F." are the same person (which appears to be the case, based on the renewal record for EP0000159811), his last publication was Jesus, Jesus, Jesus: lifting His name in song: new sacred poetry & music by Bill Lakey. This copyright was filed from Fairview, Oklahoma, which leads me to think that he is the same William F. Lakey (1926-1996) buried in the Fairview Cemetery.

"Do you know my Jesus?" is a great example of the benefit of collaboration. According to the authorship data given in Praise for the Lord, Lakey wrote the refrain first; this is the heart of the song, confronting the hearer with the all-important question that gives the song its title, but it is not quite enough to stand on its own. Ellis then wrote the stanzas, posing questions about the hearer's life which lead into the stanza in a natural progression of thoughts. It is a model of evangelism put to music; the listener is approached where he or she is in life, led to question the direction of that life, and then gently brought to the great question we all someday must answer.

Stanza 1:
Have you a heart that's weary,
Tending a load of care;
Are you a soul that's seeking
Rest from the burden you bear?

The first stanza speaks to the person who may not actually know what he or she is lacking in life, but simply knows that something is missing. People might cover up this nagging unease with various things, but there is still a gap there that cannot be filled except by God. It was part of the mission of Christ to bring a personal knowledge of God into the world, as He said in John 14:7, "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him." John wrote more expansively on this in the prologue to his account of the gospel:

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.(John 1:10-14)

It was this blessing John wrote of again in his first letter: "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are." But John noted again sadly, "The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him."(1 John 3:1)

There is no question that the world is weary-hearted, "tending a load of care." Ecclesiastes presents an honest account of life viewed from this worldly perspective: "All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing."(Ecclesiastes 1:8) But the answer is not found in a philosophy, or in a method, or in a discipline; it is found in a Person.

Refrain:
Do you know my Jesus?
Do you know my Friend?
Have you heard He loves you,
And that He will abide till the end?

One of the pitfalls of the English speaker who studies German is learning the proper usage of the two principal verbs for the concept "to know"--wissen and kennen. Where English uses a single expression, the German wissen expresses the knowledge of a fact, but kennen expresses acquaintance with a person or place. One may legitimately ask, "Wissen Sie, wo Berlin ist?" ("Do you know where Berlin is?"), or "Kennen Sie Berlin?" ("Do you know Berlin?"), but the question, "Wissen Sie Berlin?" would literally mean something like, "Are you aware that Berlin exists?"--if it meant anything at all. The distinctive meaning of kennen carries over into English by way of the Scottish ken, which derives from a similar root word. If something is "beyond my ken" it is outside my experience, or beyond my understanding.

When the refrain of this song asks the question, "Do you know my Jesus?," it is in this deeper sense of acquaintance and personal familiarity. Many people are vaguely aware of the basic claims about who Jesus is; a smaller number could be said to truly know His life and teachings in some depth; but far fewer can claim to know Him as a person knows a close friend. Our friends and family on this earth, who know us and are known by us as nearly as any person knows another, have an impact on us over the years. Our characters are changed and the courses of our lives are altered by these associations. The same effects are seen in those who truly know Jesus, as evidenced by the words of the apostles:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.(2 Peter 1:2-4)

According to Peter, knowing Jesus blesses the believer in a number of ways. He changes our character, and benefits us both now and hereafter with:

• Grace and peace.
• All things that pertain to life and godliness.
• Precious and very great promises.
• Partaking of the divine nature.
• Escape from the corruption that is in the world.

Paul wrote to the Philippians, from his imprisonment in Rome, about the central importance of a personal knowledge of Christ. It was worth everything to Paul:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith--that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.(Philippians 3:8-11)

Through knowing Christ, Paul found righteousness from God. By emulating Christ's death (in baptism, as he explained in Romans 6, and also in being a "living sacrifice" day by day) Paul not only died to sin, but received the "power of His resurrection" in a new spiritual life here, and an eternal life following the Resurrection to come. There is no way to exaggerate, no way to overstate the importance of knowing Christ.

How do we come to know Jesus? If I seek to really understand some figure of history, above all I will want to read everything that is known to have been written or said by that person. I will also read everything written or said by those who knew the individual personally; to a lesser extent, I will read from and talk to those who have devoted a great deal of study to that person. In the same way, if I want to really understand Jesus, I will pay careful attention to His words--the sermons, the parables, the questions, and the commands. I will study the writings of the New Testament authors, who knew Him personally and were among His earliest followers. I will also seek out those today who have come to know Him well, and will learn what I can from them as well.

But from the words of Peter and Paul, it is apparent that "knowing Jesus" is incomplete unless it results in a change in our lives. In this sense, it reminds me of the study of music composition. In centuries past, composers studied the works of earlier generations through writing out copies of their works by hand. In the process of copying, they learned the patterns and nuances of each composer's style and absorbed the essentials that made the music work. When I took a course in 18th-century counterpoint, we followed a similar approach: we modeled our work on the inventions and fugues of J. S. Bach, using a compilation of his works as our only textbook. Each week we analyzed the structures of these works in both the large and small scale, and compared our own works to those of the master. It was a humiliating process, and I was never satisfied with my fugue; but I gained a much deeper appreciation for Bach's technique, and what little success I had was certainly derived from emulating his style. In the same fashion, "knowing Jesus" is only fully realized when we put His character into practice in our own lives.

Stanza 2:

Where is your heart, O pilgrim,
What does your light reveal?
Who hears your call for comfort,
When naught but sorrow you feel?

(Refrain)

The second stanza addresses the person who is a "pilgrim"--not at rest, or insensible to life's questions, but instead actively looking for answers. Perhaps, like Diogenes with his lamp, this person is using the "light" of human knowledge and inquiry in a search for something true and substantial. Diogenes, of course, was a founder of the philosophy of Cynicism; not surprisingly, his modern followers are left in much the same dilemma as they search for life's answers "under the sun."(Ecclesiastes 1:14) But as the cynic asks the final question, "Who cares?" the Christian offers a lifeline of hope if it will be received.

Or is this pilgrim perhaps a wayward Christian, who has "left the first love?"(Revelation 2:4) Scripture is clear that some will "profess to know God, but deny Him by their works."(Titus 1:16) This is not necessarily done consciously; few people come to Jesus with the intention to backslide. So how can we know that we are maintaining a good relationship with Jesus? The apostle John said, "And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. Whoever says, 'I know Him,' but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him."(1 John 2:3-4) If we know Him as we should, we will keep His words closely in mind and do our best to obey them. We can also look at our relationships to others; if they are not characterized by love, we have fallen out of touch with Jesus. John again says, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."(1 John 4:7-8)

Just as in the case of earthly friends with whom we have fallen out of touch, sometimes we have to become reacquainted with Jesus. We should study all of Scripture, of course, but it seems logical that a Christian should never be away for long from the four biographical accounts given of the Christ. We can spend time in the company of those who love Him and love to speak of Him--our fellow Christians today, as well as those apostles who carried out His will, and those prophets who foretold His coming. We can spend time in prayer, and we can focus on His perfect love for us when we meet on every Lord's Day to take His Supper. We can seek every day to live out the example He gave us, as much as our imperfect efforts allow.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.(2 Peter 1:5-8)

Stanza 3:

Who knows your disappointments,
Who hears each time you cry?
Who understands your heartaches,
Who dries the tears from your eyes?

(Refrain)

In the final stanza, Ellis turns the premise around--Does Jesus know you? In Matthew 7:23 Jesus warned that some who claim to follow Him, but who do so in disobedience or insincerity, will hear the tragic words, "I never knew you." But faithful Christians who truly know Jesus can rest assured that Jesus knows them as well. In the 2nd and 3rd chapters of the Revelation, Jesus told each of the seven churches of Asia, "I know your works." He knew both the good and the bad, their failures and their triumphs.

When we are disappointed, Jesus knows this disappointment. He too met with disappointment in His earthly life. In John 6:67, after many of His disciples rejected Him and "followed Him no more," Jesus said to the Twelve, "Will you go away also?" When we have heartaches, Jesus knows this feeling as well. Remember His grief over Jerusalem when He said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!"(Luke 13:34) And when we shed tears, Jesus has done so as well. In that shortest verse of the Scriptures (at least as we have marked off verses), John 11:35, we read a simple but profound statement: "Jesus wept." The Lord of Creation, who has "all authority in heaven and on earth,"(Matthew 28:18) has felt human tears run down His cheeks just as surely as have we.

The question, "Do you know my Jesus?" is the most important question that we will ever answer. May we always follow Peter's advice in 2 Peter 3:18, "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen."

About the music:

The melody of this song is a little unusual, though not unpleasantly so. The melody in the stanza consists far more of leaps than of steps, reversing the usual tendency. The opening phrase even includes the leap of an octave in the middle of a series of four consecutive leaps, creating a very distinctive profile. The refrain leaps into the upper register and stays there, contrasting with the low range of the stanza. An effective tension is set up in the refrain by the emphasis on the leading tone at the ends of the first two phrases (on the word "know" each time), resolved by the triumphant climb up to the highest note of the tune on the words "Have you heard?"

Ellis was an important player in the creation of the modern commercial Southern gospel style. I admit this is not a kind of music that I care for personally, but Ellis certainly writes it very effectively. One aspect of this song that is very telling of its innate quality is that it translates well to a cappella congregational singing, something that is not always true of this style. In this case, however, the song works well both as a quartet and as a congregational song. One factor in its favor here is that it is adaptable to a wide range of tempo. Mainstream interpretations such as those of the Gaithers and Skeeter Davis clock in at about 82 beats per minute; I even found one Youtube video of Jimmy Swaggart singing it at 70 beats per minute. By contrast, the video below represents a pretty typical tempo (maybe a little on the fast side) used for a cappella congregational singing among the Churches of Christ. The tempo is about 128 beats per minute, nearly twice as fast as Swaggart's!

I think the reason for this huge difference is that instrumentally accompanied gospel uses fills from the accompaniment to keep things moving during long notes of the melody, especially at the ends of phrases. In a cappella singing, however, these long notes can seem to be a sudden collapse of the tempo; it is just more comfortable to keep things moving at a faster pace. Not every song works well without accompaniment and at a radically different speed, but "Do you know my Jesus?" works well at both fast and slow tempos.

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References:

"Vep Ellis." Southern Gospel History. http://www.sghistory.com/index.php?n=V.Vep_Ellis

Slaughter, Henry. "Vep Ellis: an example to follow." I Remember. http://www.mybestyears.com/ARCHIVES/Slaughter/6-030309VepEllis.html

United States Copyright Office. Copyright Catalog (1978-present). http://cocatalog.loc.gov

"William F. Lakey." Find-A-Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=88410791

Apocalypse Now?

According to believers in the 21 December 2012 apocalypse, the ancient Mayan calender predicts the end of the world (or at least an epoch-defining cataclysm) in three days. Speculators differ on the means--a devastating solar flare, a supersized black hole, or the mysterious planet Nibiru? Take your pick. My personal favorite is Timewave Zero, "at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur simultaneously."(Wikipedia) But one belief unites them all: the End is Near (again).

Observers of popular religious culture (for that is what this is, whether people admit it or not) will recognize that the real phenomenon here is that so many people will fall for yet another predicted date for the end of the world. This happens, and will continue to happen, despite the failure of every preceding prediction--not to mention Jesus' clear insistence that "no one knows."(Mark 13:32) In honor of this latest instance of doomsaying, I would like to present some examples of apocalyptic themes in church music from days gone by.

Probably the best known of these is "Jesus is coming soon" (PFTL 351), written by Robert E. Winsett in 1942. This popular gospel song actually won "Song of the Year" in the Gospel Music Association's very first Dove Awards--in 1969!(www.doveawards.com) It is still included in a number of U.S. hymnals. I will write a complete post on this song when I get to it in alphabetical order (in approximately the year 2016 or so if the Lord wills). But for now, consider a few points about the origins and message of this song.

In 1942, the United States was suddenly engaged in World War Two in earnest. Japan had delivered a nearly fatal blow to our navy in the Pacific, crushing Americans' faith that the oceans would keep war at bay. Though that year would also see major turning points in favor of the Allies--such as Midway, El Alamein, and Stalingrad--to the average person at the time it was anyone's guess who would be the victor. And if one were looking for "the Antichrist" (as that term is popularly used; but see 1 John 2:18!), Adolf Hitler was a candidate far better qualified than those names that have been bandied about since. In the early 1940s it certainly looked as though the world were ending!

What were the views of Robert E. Winsett when he wrote this song? I have found no direct testimony from the author, but his personal and professional associations offer pretty conclusive evidence. He was a minister in the Church of God (Seventh Day),(Nickels, 123) an Adventist group that never accepted Ellen White's claims as a prophet.("Questions") Their beliefs about the Apocalypse were originally quite mixed, stemming from the spectacular failure of the William Miller prophecies in the 19th century. But in the early 20th century Andrew N. Dugger, editor of the Bible Advocate and president of the General Conference (church history buffs may recognize his name also from the 1942 Dugger-Porter debate), taught that world events were pointing to an immediate return of Christ. Dugger promoted his view especially heavily during the 1920s to 1940s--the era of the Great Depression and World War Two.(Coulter, 13) He declared as early as 1933,

The end is very near at hand. Signs throughout the world show the Lord is soon coming. European diplomats are prophesying a world war involving all nations in 1934 which they say the League of Nations is powerless to avert. We know what this means. Conditions of the world, and also of the Holy Land, are set in order for Armageddon. Therefore the church must also be set in order, to meet the bridegroom. ... It is now time for his wife to make herself ready.(quoted in Lane)

It is significant as well that Herbert W. Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God, promoters of the Anglo-Israelism version of End Times doctrines, split away from the Church of God (Seventh Day) during this time.("Questions") It is interesting to note that after the war failed to end in Armageddon, opinions again became divided, and today the mainstream Church of God (Seventh Day) officially eschews the idea of predicting the return of Christ.(Coulter, 13; see also McBride, 6-7)

Where was Winsett during the period of Dugger's ascendancy? When the Salem-Stanberry split occured in the Church of God (Seventh Day) in 1933, Winsett was selected as part of the leadership of the Salem branch, which was headed primarily by Dugger.(Nickels, 134) Though the split itself (which was later repaired) was about church organization, not End Times doctrines, this does show the association of the two men. At the time "Jesus is coming soon" was written, on the heels of a global depression and deep into a global war, there was widespread belief in Winsett's circles that the return of Christ was imminent.

The lyrics come into much sharper focus in this context. I believe the first stanza obviously references World War Two, which from the perspective of the U.S. general public had just gone from a distant conflict on another continent to a full national mobilization.

Troublesome times are here,
Filling men's hearts with fear;
Freedom we all hold dear
Now is at stake . . .

The second stanza might be addressing the Great Depression ("losing their homes of gold?"), a traumatic decade of hardship and upheaval that had transformed American society. The first line probably refers to Jesus' statement in Matthew 24:12, "And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." Matthew 24, of course, is a central text in the debate over End Times predictions.

Love of so many cold,
Losing their homes of gold;
This in God's word is told,
Evils abound.

Winsett's belief that current events pointed to an imminent Apocalypse is most clearly stated in the second half of the stanza:

When these signs come to pass,
Nearing the end at last,
It will come very fast,
Trumpets will sound.

The rest of the lyrics fit in with this interpretation well enough, but do not specifically suggest it.

For those of us who stand simply on Jesus' plain statement that "concerning that day and hour, no one knows,"(Matthew 24:36) what does this song mean? If you didn't know when Winsett wrote it, and what his beliefs were about the events of his day, the song might bear a less controversial interpretation (up to a certain point). The first stanza asserts only that "troublesome times are here," creating fear and threatening a loss of liberties. That has been more or less true for most people throughout the history of the world; the troubles and threats are always there, only the names change. Admittedly, however, to say that those times "are here" implies that they were not before, and that their arrival has significance.

The refrain might not be objectionable either, depending on what one means by "coming soon:"

Jesus is coming soon,
Morning or night or noon!
Many will meet their doom;
Trumpets will sound.
All of the dead shall rise,
Righteous meet in the skies,
Going where no one dies,
Heavenward bound.

Jesus said in His last words to us, after all, "Surely I am coming quickly."(Revelation 22:21) Naturally, what God means by "quickly" and what we mean by "quickly" are two different things; God literally has all the time in the world. The statement "Jesus is coming soon," therefore, is true against this backdrop; but in the overall context of the song it obviously implies that Jesus is coming soon in the sense we humans mean.

If there were any doubt of the interpretation of this song, the second stanza removes it entirely. The line, "When these signs come to pass," claims that the foregoing events are visible indications of the imminent return of Jesus; Winsett either believed the signs were already present, or would be so shortly. For this reason, this stanza is often omitted among the Churches of Christ, either by the song leader in practice or in the hymnal itself (as in Praise for the Lord). The third stanza does not contain anything particularly controversial.

We often sing hymns, of course, that were written by people with whom we disagree in some aspect of doctrine. Sometimes we even sing a hymn with an entirely different meaning than what the author intended--for example, "Faith of our Fathers" is sung by many different religious groups despite the fact that Faber was writing specifically about Roman Catholicism (check the original third stanza). But in the case of "Jesus is coming soon," the lyrics (especially in the second stanza) are so explicit in their intent that many in the Churches of Christ simply will not use it in worship. I do not lead it myself (even with the second stanza omitted) because in my opinion, an honest, straightforward reading of it teaches doctrines I believe to be false. (For two excellent articles on doctrinal issues in this song, see Guy F. Hester, "Is Jesus coming soon?" from the May 2011 Gospel Gleaner, and "Jesus is coming soon?" by Dave Miller at the Apologetics Press site.)

"Jesus is coming soon" in its historical context brings up another interesting point--if this song was proclaiming the Apocalypse in the 1940s, how did it manage to outlive the failure of that prediction and even rise in popularity through the years? Part of the reason is that it is a rousing, well-written song. But I believe another reason was the rapid ascendancy of a new era of "troublesome times"--the atomic age. If the line about "losing their homes of gold" made less sense during the post-war era when American affluence was rising, the Cold War threat of sudden and fiery destruction was "filling men's hearts with fear" once again.

With the rising popularity of commercial gospel music during the post-war era, many songwriters took up the theme of "Jesus is coming soon" in a similar but updated vein. One of the most famous of these "atomic gospel" songs was "Great Atomic Power" by the Louvin Brothers in 1952. Despite its rather macabre lyrics, this has remained a popular song in bluegrass and folk music circles, partly for its historic value and partly because it is just rather catchy.

The paranoia of the Cold War took many forms, perhaps none more unusual than the flying saucer panics of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1947, the year of the Roswell incident and the Truman Doctrine, the Buchanan Brothers released this interesting interpretation of current events:

Please understand that I am not giving these examples in order to mock them (well, maybe the last one). I still remember, from my childhood in the later part of the Cold War, how the hairs on the back of my neck stood up whenever I heard that shrill tone of the Emergency Broadcasting System. (For some sick reason they always tested it right after school, when I was home alone watching cartoons.) But I do hope to make the point that when society is disrupted by some cataclysm, or the perceived threat of cataclysm, one of our instinctive human responses is to interpret it as a sign.

We also have a recurring fascination with unusual numbers on the calendar. It has happened before and will happen again. Look, for example, at the following text:

Hear, O earth, hear, O great bordering sea;
Hear, O man, hear, everything which lives under the sun:
The day of supreme wrath comes nigh,
Troublesome day,
Bitter day,
At which the heavens will flee,
The sun will turn red,
The moon will be altered, and the day grow dark,
And the stars will fall to earth.
Alas, wretches,
Alas, wretches,
Why, O foolish man,
Do you follow after pleasure?

This is the first stanza (in my imperfect translation) of "Audi tellus," an apocalyptic hymn from the original millennium scare--before the year 1000.(Norberg, 154; see also Landes, 120) Similar fears arose in the 14th century when the Black Death wiped out as much as a third of the population of Europe. In 1349 the Geissler, wandering bands of penitents who flailed themselves with whips in hopes of appeasing God's wrath, sang the hymn "Nu hebent auf die uweren Händ," the gist of which is that Jesus was prepared to destroy the world because of the corruption of the church, but that Mary was interceding on behalf of the penitent.(Runge, 38, see also page 174)

Centuries later in London, the year 1666--ominous enough already--was marked by plague and fire, provoking apocalyptic expectations once again. The library of Samuel Pepys preserved an anonymous broadside ballad from that year, titled "A Bell-Man for England," the first stanza of which follows.

Awake, awake, oh England, sweet England now awake,
And to thy prayers speedily, doe thou thy selfe betake:
The Lord thy God is comming, within the skie so cleare:
Repent with speed thy wickednesse, the day it draweth neere.

The full text of fifteen stanzas (available at the wonderful English Broadside Ballad Archive) covers much of the same ground as "Jesus is Coming Soon," including this striking parallel: "For all things be fulfilled, which Christ before had told, / Small faith is now remaining, and charity is growne cold."

The tendency to express apocalyptic predictions in song is nothing new, because people will sing about things that weigh on their minds; and a feeling that the end is near is something that seems to grip societies every so often, whether because of wars, plagues, natural disasters, or social upheavals. The one thing that these apocalyptic predictions have all had in common, of course, is that they have been wrong! In my own three decades or so of following this subject, I have seen several widely publicized predictions of the Apocalypse come and go. If I had the desire, I could assemble a large stack of books ascertaining the identity of the "Antichrist," depending on the international boogeyman of the moment. I have been solemnly assured that the Lord must surely come by the year 1980, 1990, 2000, 2012, etc.

For every person who hears such a prediction and is caused perhaps to think for a moment about the state of his or her soul, how many more are encouraged to join the scoffers who say, "Where is the promise of His coming?"(2 Peter 3:4) How much better simply to follow Christ's command in Matthew 25:13, "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour!" And in a very real sense, of course, the "End is Near" for each one of us. I say this not to be morbid, but as a simple fact: every day could be our last day, whether the Lord returns that day or not. We need to be prepared to meet the Lord on 21 December 2012, and on any other day of the calendar. God help us to devote our energies to serving Him and our fellow humanity, rather than wasting time in speculation on a matter we have been told is not to be found out!

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References:

"2012 Phenomenon." Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon

Nickels, Richard C. History of the Church of God (Seventh Day). Revised by the author in 1993. Freetoshare Publications, 2010. http://www.scribd.com/doc/43084156/History-of-the-Church-of-God-Seventh-Day

"Frequently asked questions." General Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day) http://cog7.org/about-us/frequently-asked-questions/

Coulter, Robert. "Questions and answers." Bible Advocate volume 146, number 6 (November-December 2012), page 13. http://baonline.org/Issues/Flip/BA-2012-6_November-December/index.html

McBride, James. "It's doomsday... again!" Bible Advocate volume 146, number 6 (November-December 2012), pages 6-7. http://baonline.org/Issues/Flip/BA-2012-6_November-December/index.html

Lane, Jack M. "Why I am no longer an 'imminent Adventist.'" Livingtheway.org. http://livingtheway.org/imminent.html

Norberg, Dag. An Introduction to the Study of Medieval Latin Versification, translated by Roti & Skubly, edited by Jan Ziolkowski. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 2004.

Landes, Richard. "The Fear of an Apocalyptic Year 1000: Augustinian Historiography, Medieval and Modern." Speculum, 75:1 (January 2000), pages 97-145. Online version from Boston University Department of History. http://www.bu.edu/history/files/2011/10/11.Fear-of-an-Apocalyptic-Year-1000-Speculum.pdf