Scripture Verse

Introduction

Origin of the Song

Mr. Web­ster, like ma­ny mu­si­cians, was of an ex­ceed­ing­ly ner­vous and sen­si­tive na­ture, and sub­ject to pe­ri­ods of de­pres­sion, in which he looked up­on the dark side of all things in life.

I had learned his pe­cu­li­ar­ities so well that on meet­ing him I could tell at a glance if he was mel­an­cho­ly, and had found that I could rouse him up by giv­ing him a new song to work on.

He came in­to my place of bu­si­ness [in Elk­horn, Wis­con­sin], walked down to the stove, and turned his back on me with­out speak­ing. I was at my desk. Turn­ing to him, I said, Web­ster, what is the mat­ter now? It’s no mat­ter, he re­plied, it will be all right by and by.

The idea of the hymn came me like a flash of sun­light, and I re­plied, The Sweet By and By! Why would not that make a good hymn? May­be it would, he said in­dif­fer­ent­ly.

Turning to my desk I penned the words of the hymn as fast as I could write. I hand­ed the words to Web­ster. As he read his eyes kin­dled, and step­ping to the desk he be­gan writ­ing the notes.

Taking his vi­olin, he played the me­lo­dy and then jot­ted down the notes of the chor­us. It was not ov­er thir­ty min­utes from the time I took my pen to write the words be­fore two friends with Web­ster and my­self were sing­ing the hymn.

Sanford Fill­more Ben­nett
(1836–1898)