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Song: If We Never Meet Again
Scripture: John 14:1-6
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
Albert Brumley was truly one of the great Southern Gospel songwriters of all time, and his songs began reverberating across America in the early1930s. He was a great encouragement to millions of people who were enduring extremely difficult times. He was the “Mosie Lister” of the 30s and 40s for Southern Gospel music lovers.
Born to William and Sarah Brumley, near Spiro, Oklahoma, on October 29, 1905, young Albert began his study of music as a lad of seventeen, attending singing schools and music normals. He attended the Hartford Music Institute, Hartford, Arkansas from 1926 to 1931. He also studied under such music greats as Homer Rodeheaver, E. M. Bartlett, Virgil O. Stamps and Dr. J. B. Herbert.
Many of the themes of his songs came out of his days growing up on a cotton farm. His early efforts at songwriting were mostly for his own pleasure. It was not until he met and married
Goldie Schell that he began to have his music published, -- a direct result of her encouragement. His first published song was “I’ll Fly Away.” From that point on he devoted more time to songwriting.
He sang with the Hartford Quartet for a time, but soon left that employment to teach music, and to tune pianos. In those days it was hard for a full-time traveling quartet to make a living. He taught a total of fifty-one singing schools and music normals in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.
After appearing at song gatherings and all-day singings for more than twenty years, he found it increasingly difficult to say goodbye to the crowds who had gathered and sang his songs for hours. Clint Bonner, in one of his syndicated newspaper articles, “A Hymn Is Born,” that appeared in more than 400 daily and weekly newspapers during the mid-1900s, quoted Brumley as saying, “It does something to you when people sing your songs for two hours and then hundreds of them come down front to shake your hand. There are dear old souls with tears in their eyes who tell you how they love to sing “I Dreamed I Met Mother and Daddy.” There are those who have lost loved ones and they want to talk about “I’ll Meet You In the Morning.”
Bonner explains that Brumley devised a unique way to tell audiences “Goodbye.” He wrote a song to sing with the people at the close of concerts and all-day singings. It not only accomplished that purpose for him, but it became so popular that it soon began to be sold in sheet music form, and was also translated into several other languages.
The song...”If We Never Meet Again.”
In the lyrics Brumley cleverly comforts Christians who find it necessary to part from loved ones and friends, perhaps never to meet on this earth any more. He explains that the sorrow and pain felt here on earth will be none existent in heaven, “in the wonderful sweet by and by.” The sorrows that quicken our pain here will never be felt in “heaven’s bright city.”
His own goodbyes to the ones leaving the “singings” were said as he sang the closing line of his song with them, “I will meet you on that beautiful shore.”
Reflection:
The promise of a “better place” after our lives on this earth is ended, is one thing that makes hundreds of songs about heaven so very popular. The prospect of living in the presence of Christ, as we gather around His throne with our loved ones and friends we’ve known down here, makes saying goodbye a little easier.
Reader Comments
Thanks so much for the story behind that great old song.
God is good all the time & all the time God is good.
Elaine Harcourt
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Written: 10/01/2007 
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Category:
Behind the Songs
Comments: 3 Favorited:
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