AN AMERICAN SPIRITUAL
During the Second Great Awakening from 1790-1835, large numbers of African-Americans from Southern plantations began joining mainstream Christian churches, because they were allowed to attend outdoor revivals known as camp meetings, where Methodist circuit riders would arouse the religious passions of the audience. The plantation work songs of the Negro slaves became Spiritual hymns infused with Christian themes, that often conveyed a longing for freedom and deliverance from their lives of hardship. Spiritual hymns began to spread through these outdoor revivals. A common refrain to the Spiritual was Glory, Glory, Hallelujah.

It was also a time when slaves would attempt escape to the North for freedom. The Mason-Dixon Line represented the line of freedom for thousands of blacks escaping slavery in the south. The Underground Railroad provided food and temporary shelter by conductors such as Harriet Tubman and William Still along the way. There has been suggestion that the spirituals contained hidden symbolism, as the River Jordan was the Mason-Dixon line, and Pennsylvania was the Promised Land. When the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 overruled the liberal laws of Pennsylvania, abolitionists provided stations all the way to Canaan, or Canada, the new line of freedom.

A camp meeting song entitled Say Brothers, Will You Meet Us? with the Glory refrain first became popular around Charleston, South Carolina in the first half of the 1800s. The hymn was later attributed to William Steffe, and the song quickly spread throughout the nation. Julia Ward Howe of New York City was an accomplished writer who, in 1861 on a trip to Washington, D. C., visited the Northern troops on the Potomac River at the beginning of the Civil War. They were singing the hymn with lyrics made up by the soldiers, such as John Brown's song. Seeking to refine the words, she wrote new lyrics for the spiritual and entitled the song, The Battle Hymn of The Republic. And so a Southern hymn became the Anthem for the Union troops during the Civil War! Both songs are rich in Biblical expression. This stirring hymn is an American standard.


SAY BROTHERS, WILL YOU MEET US?
Say, brothers, will you meet us?
Say, brothers, will you meet us?
Say, brothers, will you meet us?
On Canaan's happy shore?


- Chorus -
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Forever, evermore!

Say, sisters, will you meet us,
Say, sisters, will you meet us,
Say, sisters, will you meet us,
On Canaan's happy shore?

- Chorus -

By the grace of God we'll meet you
Where parting is no more;
That will be a happy meeting
On Canaan's happy shore.

- Chorus -

Jesus lives and reigns forever,
On Canaan's happy shore.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Forever, evermore!


- Chorus -
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Forever, evermore!

Methodist Camp Meeting Song
1800s



THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
-Chorus-
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Since God is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
While God is marching on.

Julia Ward Howe
1861


Poetry
The Bible
Pennsylvania
The Gettysburg Address