"WE SHALL MEET BEYOND THE RIVER."

The words were written by Rev. John Atkinson, D.D., in January, 1867,
soon after the death of his mother. He had been engaged in revival work
and one night in his study, "that song, in substance, seemed," he says,
"to sing itself into my heart." He said to himself, "I would better
write it down, or I shall lose it."

"There," he adds, "in the silence of my study, and not far from
midnight, I wrote the hymn."

We shall meet beyond the river
By and by, by and by;
And the darkness will be over
By and by, by and by.

With the toilsome journey done,
And the glorious battle won.
We shall shine forth as the sun
By and by, by and by.

The Rev. John Atkinson was born in Deerfield, N.J. Sept. 6, 1835. A
clergyman of the Methodist denomination, he is well-known as one of its
writers. The _Centennial History of American Methodism_ is his work, and
besides the above hymn, he has written and published _The Garden of
Sorrows_, and _The Living Way_. He died Dec. 8, 1897.

The tune to "We Shall Meet," by Hubert P. Main, composed in 1867,
exactly translates the emotional hymn into music. S.J. Vail also wrote
music to the words. The hymn, originally six eight-line stanzas, was
condensed at his request to its present length and form by Fanny Crosby.

"ONE SWEETLY SOLEMN THOUGHT."

Phebe Cary, the author of this happy poem, was the younger of the two
Cary sisters, Alice and Phebe, names pleasantly remembered in American
literature. The praise of one reflects the praise of the other when we
are told that Phebe possessed a loving and trustful soul, and her life
was an honor to true womanhood and a blessing to the poor. She had to
struggle with hardship and poverty in her early years: "I have cried in
the street because I was poor," she said in her prosperous years, "and
the poor always seem nearer to me than the rich."

When reputation came to her as a writer, she removed from her little
country home near Cincinnati, O., where she was born, in 1824, and
settled in New York City with her sister. She died at Newport, N.Y.,
July 31, 1871, and her hymn was sung at her funeral. Her remains rest in
Greenwood Cemetery.

"One Sweetly Solemn Thought," was written in 1852, during a visit to one
of her friends. She wrote (to her friend's inquiry) years afterwards
that it first saw the light "in your own house ... in the little back
third-story bedroom, one Su