Sanford F. Bennett (1836-1898)

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)

This song was sung in the Acad­emy Award win­ning mo­vie Ser­geant York (1941).

~ 

In the Sweet Bye and Bye 

There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.

Refrain

In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

We shall sing on that beautiful shore
The melodious songs of the blessed;
And our spirits shall sorrow no more,
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest.

Refrain

To our bountiful Father above,
We will offer our tribute of praise
For the glorious gift of His love
And the blessings that hallow our days.

I chose this song this week because of two funerals in our Russian Community and the fact that this song is one that this community likes to sing at funerals. Both women are in the sweet by and by. One of the ladies made peace with her heavenly Father just two days before she died.

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/i/n/t/intsbab.htm