6793. There Is a Happy Land

1. There is a happy land, far, far away,
Where saints in glory stand, bright, bright as day.
Oh, how they sweetly sing, worthy is our Savior king,
Loud let His praises ring, praise, praise for aye.

2. Come to that happy land, come, come away;
Why will ye doubting stand, why still delay?
Oh, we shall happy be, when from sin and sorrow free,
Lord, we shall live with Thee, blest, blest for aye.

3. Bright, in that happy land, beams every eye;
Kept by a Father’s hand, love cannot die.
Oh, then to glory run; be a crown and kingdom won;
And, bright, above the sun, we reign for aye.

Text Information
First Line: There is a happy land, far, far away
Title: There Is a Happy Land
Author: Andrew Young (1838)
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain
Notes: A col­lege stu­dent in Vir­gin­ia, proud of his in­tel­lec­tu­al at­tain­ments, thought if he ever became a Chris­tian it would be through an el­o­quent ser­mon of some dis­tin­guished pul­pit or­a­tor. While hunt­ing deer dur­ing a va­ca­tion he was drawn to a gorge far away in the moun­tains, by the sound of a sweet fe­male voice, en­gag­ed in sing­ing. As he drew near­er he re­cog­nized the words of the hymn:— "There is a happy land Far far away." At length he per­ceived a log cabin, and an old fe­male slave, with hair as white as snow, stand­ing with­out at her wash tub sing­ing away as though her heart was over­flow­ing with glad­ness. She was un­u­sual­ly tall and ve­ry straight. As the young stu­dent stood en­chant­ed with the ro­man­tic scene, he found that she was al­so blind, and, as she kept on sing­ing and wash­ing, her hap­py soul would bec­ome so full of joy that she would stop wash­ing, and, for a while straight­en­ing up, and turn­ing her sight­less eye-balls hea­ven­ward, would make the sur­round­ing rocks and moun­tains ring as her joy­ful voice would sing:— "There is a land of pure delight Where saints immortal reign." At length the stu­dent said to her, "Aunt­ie, I see you are blind?" "No, mas­sa," said she, "I is not blind. I can’t see you, nor dese trees, nor dese rocks, nor dese moun­tains, but I can see into the king­dom. I can see de "hap­py land, far, far away."" The young stu­dent was so im­pressed with what he saw and heard that from that time on, he was deep­ly con­vict­ed of sin, and rest­ed not un­til he found rest in Je­sus. He even­tu­al­ly be­came a min­is­ter, and told the au­thor that the echo of that hap­py slave’s song still fol­­lows him. Long, p. 372
Tune Information
Name: HAPPY LAND
Arranger: Leonard P. Breedlove (1850)
Incipit: 33235 53321 33235
Key: E Major
Source: Hindustani air
Copyright: Public Domain



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