Great stress having been laid by the opponents of Governor Andrew upon the fact that John Brown was dead, the authors of the song spoken of took good care to assert that, while
“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
His soul is marching on.”
HARPER’S FERRY
This was the answer of those that sympathized with John Brown, a song which they flung at those who seemed to take delight in the fact that he was dead.
Thane Miller, of Cincinnati, heard the melody, which is perhaps the most popular martial melody in America, in a colored Presbyterian church in Charleston, South Carolina, about 1859, and soon after introduced it at a convention of the Young Men’s Christian Association in Albany, New York, with the words,—
“Say, brothers will you meet us,
Say, brothers will you meet us,
Say, brothers will you meet us,
On Canaan’s happy shore?
By the grace of God we’ll meet you,
By the grace of God we’ll meet you,
By the grace of God we’ll meet you,
Where parting is no more.”
Professor James E. Greenleaf, organist of the Harvard Church in Charlestown, found the music in the archives of that church, and fitted it to the first stanza of the present song. It has since been claimed that the Millerites, in 1843, used the same tune to a hymn, one verse of which is as follows,—
“We’ll see the angels coming
Through the old churchyards,
Shouting through the air
Glory, glory hallelujah!”