Of the author, the editor of the OSH says: “Peter Cartwright [the presumptive author of tune and words] was a minister of the gospel, and used this tune in his camp meetings long before it was ever placed in notation.—Peter Cartwright was born in Amherst County, Va., 1785, and died in Sangamond [sic] County, Ill., 1872.” The song has been widely sung by the negroes who have added numerous stanzas. See White Spirituals, 263. A pre-Civil War secular negroid parody on ‘Hebrew Children’ was published by C. Bradlee & Co., Boston, 1844. Its first stanza is:
O whar is de spot dat we was born on, (three times)
Way down in Car’line State.
Mrs. Annabel Morris Buchanan has made an excellent arrangement of a version of ‘Hebrew Children’ for chorus. It is published by J. Fischer and Brother, New York.
No. 195
[COME ALONG AND SHOUT ALONG] or HEAVEN BORN SOLDIERS or NEVER GET TIRED, SOC 184
Heptatonic aeolian, mode 2 A + b (I II 3 IV V 6 7)
O thou by long experience tried,
Never get tir’d a-serving of the Lord;
Near whom no griefs can long abide,