Will L. Thompson

Hymn writer and composer William Lamartine Thompson was born today in 1847 in Smiths Ferry, Pennsylvania, but shortly thereafter his parents moved to East Liverpool, Ohio, where Thompson was to live for most of his life. He graduated from Mount Union College in nearby Alliance, continuing studies in music at the New England Conservatory of Music (not long after its founding by Eben Tour­jée, the father of hymn composer Lizzie Tour­jée), and later in Leipzig, Germany.

While still studying in Boston, Thompson wrote his first successful song, Gathering Up the Shells at the Seashore, inspired by an excursion to nearby Nahant Beach. While he went on to write many secular and patriotic songs, becoming known as “the Stephen Foster of Ohio,” he would become even better known for writing gospel songs.

Back in East Liverpool after his education, he encountered some obstacles to having his music published so he started the W.L. Thompson Music Company which published and sold sheet music and song collections in addition to selling musical instruments and other supplies. He later opened a similar successful company in Chicago.

Will Thompson wrote many gospel songs that appeared in various hymn and song books between 1875 and 1920. The Cyber Hymnal lists only a few that you can examine, and Hymnary.org lists many more, though only by title. One of his songs stands out above the others, loved and sung by millions. First published by Thompson in Sparkling Gems No. 1 & 2 (1880), it has since appeared in hundreds more collections.

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling for you and for me;
Patiently Jesus is waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.

Refrain
Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O wand'rer, come home!

Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading,
Pleading for you and for me?
Why should we linger and heed not his mercies,
Mercies for you and for me?
Refrain

O for the wonderful love that is promised,
Promised for you and for me!
Though we have sinned, there is mercy and pardon,
Pardon for you and for me.
Refrain

Will L. Thompson, 1880; alt.
Tune: THOMPSON (11.7.11.7. with refrain)

You might also remember this song as sung by actress Geraldine Page in her Academy Award-winning performance in The Trip to Bountiful (1985). And if you haven't seen that film, you should.

One anecdote is told in nearly every account of Thompson's life. Evangelist Dwight Moody, who had traveled the world with singer and songwriter Ira Sankey, was on his deathbed when he learned that Thompson had called to see him. Insisting on seeing Thompson, Moody then told him that he would rather have written Softly and tenderly than any of his numerous other accomplishments in life.

More Voices Found: Lizzie Tour­jée

Lizzie Tourjee was born on September 8, 1858, into a musical family. Her father, Eben Tour­jée, taught music in several places, then in 1867 founded the New England Conservatory of Music. The following tune by Lizzie was composed for a graduation song at her high school in 1874. A few years later her father was working on the committee that produced the Methodist Hymnal of 1878, and he submitted her tune, calling it WELLESLEY after the New England college that Lizzie had attended. The tune became very popular before long, and was used in a great number of hymnals for at least the next 50-60 years, often paired with There's a wideness in God's mercy, but I prefer it with this text, a paraphrase of Psalm 150.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
In the temple God be praised;
In the high and heavenly places
Be the sounding anthem raised.

Hallelujah! Shout your praises
For God's mighty acts of fame;
Excellent God's might and greatness;
Equal praises then proclaim.

Hallelujah! Sing your praises!
With the trumpet’s joyful sound;
Praises give with harp and psaltery,
Let God's glorious praise abound.

Hallelujah! Lift your praises,
With the flute God's praises sing;
Praise God with the clanging cymbals,
Let them with loud praises ring.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
All that breathe, resound God's praise;
Let the voices God has given
Joyful anthems ever raise.

The Psalter, 1912; alt.
Tune: WELLESLEY (8.7.8.7.)
Lizzie Tour­jée, 1874

This tune has grown on me; I didn't always think much of it. The second and fourth lines are better than the slightly frantic first and third. In The Music and Hymnody of the Methodist Hymnal (1911), author Carl Price describes WELLESLEY as "stately," which is not a term I would have chosen. Maybe they played it a lot slower in those days. Still, it's a tune that many have sung over the years and deserves to be remembered, though it doesn't appear in as many hymnals as it used to.

Not much more is known about Tour­jée (no known photograph of her, for example). I've found only one reference to a children's song written by her in a nineteenth-century anthology.

Many psalm paraphrases were written by well-known hymn writers such as Isaac Watts, but most older ones were anonymously written. This one comes mostly from the Presbyterian Psalter of 1912, though it is based on an earlier one.