Introduction
1872–1964
Words: Ina D. Ogdon, in Songs of Revival Power, edited by Edmund Lorenz (Dayton, Ohio: Lorenz & Company, 1907), number 4.
Music: Edmund S. Lorenz (🔊 pdf nwc).
1854–1942
Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Revelation 19:9
Words: Ina D. Ogdon, in Songs of Revival Power, edited by Edmund Lorenz (Dayton, Ohio: Lorenz & Company, 1907), number 4.
Music: Edmund S. Lorenz (🔊 pdf nwc).
The theme of absent friends and loved ones echoes the American civil war ballad The Vacant Chair, by Henry S. Washburn.
Washburn’s song was enormously popular in the late 1800s, and many civil war veterans were living in 1907, when Ogdon’s words no doubt brought the ballad to mind.
The Vacant Chair was still remembered even a century after the war: It appeared in the American television program The Andy Griffith Show on February 17, 1964, with sheriff Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) and deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts) singing it in the town jail.
Hear the gracious invitation,
From the royal house of God,
Unto all of every nation,
Signed and sealed by Jesus’ blood;
Lo! the wedding feast is waiting,
Let us hasten to prepare;
Let us waste no time debating,
Let there be no vacant chair.
Refrain
Let there be no vacant chair!
Let us one and all be there!
Lo! the wedding feast is ready,
Let there be no vacant chair.
Let us robe in snowy whiteness
For that great and happy day;
Tune our hearts to songs of brightness,
Bid our troubles flee away;
There shall nevermore be sorrow,
There shall nevermore be night;
At the festal board tomorrow,
Shall be naught but pure delight.
Refrain
Many friends are there to meet us
In redeemed, immortal state;
They are pressing forth to greet us,
As we’re sweeping thro’ the gate;
Hear the loving Father pleading,
Lo! the feast awaits us there;
Oh, His blessèd summons heeding,
Let there be no vacant chair.
Refrain