John 9:4 – “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”
The great hymns usually have some interesting or unusual features in their history or composition. This is the story of such a hymn. It “grew into” one of the all-time greats from an original song that was not warmly received at first.
Carrie Elizabeth Ellis was born in 1855 in Walden, Vermont, and grew up in New Jersey where her family moved in 1863. She was not well educated but enjoyed writing. She wrote between fourteen and fifteen hundred hymns. Yet how many people know of her and her songs today? Throughout her life, she composed hundreds of songs. The “Face to Face” hymn was a collaboration between Carrie and Grant Tullar. Carrie provided the poem while Grant wrote the tune. It took a single day for the words and music to come together.
The music was originally created for a different song by Grant Colfax Tullar.
This is how it happened. In 1898 Grant Colfax Tullar, a musician, was attending an evangelistic seminar held in New Jersey. During the meetings, the people assisting the meetings gathered in a pastor's house for a snack. Tullar was known to like a certain jelly so the pastor and his wife handed him an almost empty jar. Tullar is reported to have said, "So, this is all for me, is it?" It was this incident that inspired Tullar to compose the words and music to a new hymn: "All for me the Savior suffered...all for me He bled and died." Later that night he had the congregation sing this new song. Unfortunately, it was not enthusiastically received.The following day, the musician received a letter from Carrie. The letter contained a number of poems for which Carrie wanted Tullar to write the music . One of the poems was entitled, "Face to Face." After reading this poem the musician saw that the words fit perfectly with the music of his song that was not enthusiastically received the day before. When he added that song's music to Carrie's poem, a hymn was born that blessed people then and continues to do so now.
How often does it seem that our works, sincere though they may be, are not popularly received! We may know that they are scriptural and sincere, yet often audiences are easily dulled. There is a lesson for God’s people in the story of this great hymn: keep producing works for God. They might not “catch on” or be popular now, but God may use them later on for His glory and the good of man.
Remember: the night cometh when no man can work (Jn. 9:4). Let us be continually busy in the King’s service, no matter if it seems acceptable today!(Partially borrowed from Fundamental Baptist Information Service website)
