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.
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 blest,
And our spirits shall sorrow no more,
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest.
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.
Public domain hymn text (published 1868). Words by S. Fillmore Bennett.
The Story Behind the Hymn
S. Fillmore Bennett was a physician, poet, and hymn writer working in the small town of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, who often collaborated on hymns with a friend and neighbor, the composer Joseph Webster — a talented but emotionally unsteady musician known among those close to him for recurring, sometimes severe periods of melancholy and low spirits, for which Bennett had apparently developed something of an informal, practiced remedy over the years.
According to Bennett's own later account of the hymn's writing, he noticed Webster arrive at his office one day in one of these characteristic low moods, and when Bennett asked what was troubling him, Webster brushed the question off in his usual way, saying only that it would pass eventually, as it always did. Knowing from experience that the act of working together on a new hymn text often helped lift his friend out of exactly this kind of despondency, Bennett asked Webster what subject might work well for a new song they could write together on the spot.
Looking around the room for inspiration and finding none in particular, Bennett glanced up and, almost without premeditation, said the phrase 'the sweet by and by' — words that simply occurred to him in the moment. Struck by how naturally the phrase fit, he immediately sat down and began writing out the hymn's verses at his desk while Webster, listening to each line as Bennett produced it, began composing a matching tune at the same time, the two men working in the same room simultaneously rather than in the more usual sequence of text first, music later.
According to the account, the entire hymn — words and music together — was finished within roughly thirty minutes of Bennett first sitting down, and a small group of friends who happened to be present in the office that afternoon sang the completed song together that same evening, marking its very first performance. It was published not long afterward and quickly became one of the best-known and most widely sung American gospel songs of the entire nineteenth century — a hymn about a joyful future reunion, composed almost entirely as one friend's spontaneous, in-the-moment attempt to comfort another out of a bad afternoon.
