The Story of the Hymns and Tunes, page 279 by Theron Brown
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on, toiling on, toiling on, toiling on! (rep) Let us hope and trust, let us watch and pray, And labor till the Master comes.
"O WHERE ARE THE REAPERS?"
Matt. 13:30 is the text of this lyric from the pen of Eben E. Rexford.
Go out in the by-ways, and search them all, The wheat may be there though the weeds are tall; Then search in the highway, and pass none by, But gather them all for the home on high.
CHORUS. Where are the reapers? O who will come, And share in the glory of the harvest home? O who will help us to garner in The sheaves of good from the fields of sin?
THE TUNE.
Hymn and tune are alike. The melody and harmony by Dr. George F. Root have all the eager trip and tread of so many of the gospel hymns, and of so much of his music, and the lines respond at every step. Any other composer could not have escaped the compulsion of the final spondees, and much less the author of "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp," and all the best martial song-tunes of the great war. In this case neither words nor notes can say to the other, "We have piped unto you and ye have not danced," but a little caution will guard too enthusiastic singing against falling into the drum-rhythm, and travestying a sacred piece.
Eben Eugene Rexford was born in Johnsburg, N.Y., July 16, 1841, and has been a writer since he was fourteen years old. He is the author of several popular songs, as "Silver Threads Among the Gold," "Only a Pansy Blossom" etc., and many essays and treatises on flowers, of which he is passionately fond.
"IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL."
Horatio Gates Spafford, the writer of this hymn, was a lawyer, a native of New York state, born Oct. 30, 1828. While connected with an institution in Chicago, as professor of medical jurisprudence, he lost a great part of his fortune by the great fire in that city. This disaster was followed by the loss of his children on the steamer, Ville de Havre, Nov. 22, 1873. He seems to have been a devout Christian, for he wrote his hymn