'THE SWEET BY AND BYE.’

Temuka Leader, Issue 1098, 28 April 1883, Page 3

'THE SWEET BY AND BYE.’

The author of the well known song, “ The Sweet By and Bye,” S, Fillimorc Beunet, of Elkhoen, Wis., denies, in the Chicago Indicator, that he and the composer were drunk when they wrote the words of that song, as has been charged. Neither of them was drunk.

Bennett was at his place of business when Webster, who was of a nervous and sen-

sitive nature and easily susceptible to depression, came in, in one of his melancholy moods, “ What’s the matter now?” asked Bennett, “ It’s no matter,” he replied ; it will be all right by and bye.” “ The idea of the hymn came to me like a flash,” says Bennett, “ and I replied . ‘ The Sweet By and Bye 1’ “ Why would not this make a hymn ?” Turning to the desk Bennett then wrote the three verses of the hymn. “In the meantime, two friends, N. H. Carswell and S. E. Bright, had come in,” says Bennett “I handed the hymn to Webster. As he read, his eye kindled, and his whole demeanor changed. Stepping to the desk, he began to write the notes in a moment. Presently he requested his violin, and played the melody. In a few moments more, he had the notes for the four parts of the chorus jotted down. I think it was not over thirty minutes from the time I took my pen to write the words, before the two gentlemen before named, myself and Mr Webster were singing the hymn, in the same form in which it afterwards appeared. While singing it, Mr R, R. Crosby, now a resident of Richmond, 111., came in and after listening awhile, with tears in his eyes, uttered the prediction : 1 That hymn is immortal,’ I think it was snug in public shortly after ; for within two weeks almost every child in the atreets was singing it. It is translated into several languages, and ‘ sung in every church under the sun,’