The Gospel Bells Are Ringing Round Die Cut Inspirational Card Samuel Wesley Martin

The Gospel Bells Are Ringing

 On this post I leave the postcard for a moment and offer instead an interesting round die cut card, 3-5/8 inches in diameter, with lovely artwork in pastels and the title of the hymn on one side, The Gospel Bells Are Ringing, and other the other the first stanza and refrain with brief publication information.  There is no date.

You will notice I used the word "stanza."  What is normally called a verse, is actually correctly named a stanza.  A verse is technically only one line of poetry.  In any case, This small piece of ephemera is fun, cute, and quite lovely.

On one side is pictorial artwork colored with pastels, of bells and apple blossoms on a blue background. The opposite side is the first stanza and refrain of he hymn by Samuel Wesley Martin, The Gospel Bells Are Ringing. Published by G. and W. Co., N. Y. C., Litho. in U.S.A.

The first appearance of this hymn in publication that I found was in 1892 (copyright 1891) in The Canadian Hymnal. Samuel Wesley Martin (1839-1926) was a composer and arranger of sacred music, that he used in his position of organist at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, Illinois from 1896 to 1912. Mr. Martin came in 1894 from his native country of England with his wife, two daughters and two sons.

It is reported that in 1899 at the dedication of a new organ Mr. Martin was ill, and his talented 12-year-old son, Reginald Martin, played in his stead. Aurelia Senn, donated the $6,000 for the Kimball Company organ in 1897. It was the third organ installed by this church. Reginald soon after was employed as organist at Church of the Ascension in Chicago.

CLICK HERE to go to The Gospel Bells Are Ringing at hymntime.com, where you can hear an MP3 recording, see the complete hymn text of all four stanzas, and also download the sheet music for this hymn in Adobe PDF format.

This information was prepared by Mary Katherine May of QualityMusicandBooks.com.