A Condemned Man Wanted “Face to Face” Sung
The story of the writings of Mrs. Carrie Ellis Breck, who spent her girlhood days on her father’s fruit farm in New Jersey, was related by A. L. Lawson in The Christian Herald. From that article the following is taken:
“Perhaps the experience that touched her most deeply of all, and the one she most treasures, is that of the time when a poor condemned man, sentenced to be hanged, asked that her hymn, ‘Face to Face with Christ My Saviour,’ be sung before his execution. As the doomed wretch was led out, and looked for the last time upon what was left him of the world, there came to him the sweet words of her hymn—
‘Face to face with Christ my Saviour,
Face to face, how can it be,
When with rapture I behold Him,
Jesus Christ, Who died for me?
Face to face shall I behold Him
Far beyond the starry sky;
Face to face in all His glory,
I shall see Him by and by!’”[17]
The pathos of the situation is recounted by a prison chaplain in England who tells of