Scripture Verse

Introduction

Background

During the re­cent war in the Trans­vaal [South Af­ri­ca], said a gen­tle­man at my meet­ing in Exe­ter Hall, Lon­don, in 1900, when the sol­diers go­ing to the front were pass­ing an­oth­er bo­dy of sol­diers whom they rec­og­nized, their greet­ings used to be, Four-nine-four, boys; four-nine-four; and the sa­lute would in­va­ri­ably be an­swered with Six fur­ther on, boys; six fur­ther on.

“The sig­ni­fi­cance of this was that, in ‘Sac­red Songs and So­los,’ a num­ber of co­pies of the small edi­tion of which had been sent to the front, num­ber 494 was, ‘God be with you till we meet again;’ and six fur­ther on than 494, or num­ber 500, was ‘Bless­ed As­sur­ance, Je­sus is mine.’

One of the most po­pu­lar and use­ful of the ‘Gos­pel Hymns,’ this was sung by a large de­le­ga­tion of Christ­ian En­dea­vor­ers on the train to Min­ne­apo­lis [Minnesota], some years ago. And it was oft­en sung at night as the street-cars were crowded with pas­seng­ers on their way to the Con­ven­tion Hall, great­ly to the de­light of the peo­ple of that ci­ty.

Sankey, p. 136–39