When The Morning Comes

The hymn, We’ll Understand it Better By and By was written by Charles Albert Tindley who died at the age of 82 on July 26, 1933. He wrote the hymn following a personal tragedy of the loss of his wife Daisy. She had born him eight children and his wife Daisy, passed away in 1924, the very day the congregation entered the new sanctuary for the first time.  Initially struggling with her death, he would later explain, “one day I will understand it better by and by”. And truly Charles put this into a song that has blessed many of us. We will understand it better by and by.

Charles Tindley was born near Berlin, Maryland, in July of 1851, the son of a slave, Albert Tindley, and a freewoman, Hester Miller Tindley.  So he was born just one half-step out of slavery in 1856. Hester his mother passed away when Charles was only four, and a year later he was separated from his father. When he became old enough to work, he was hired out to work with slaves, although his status as “freeborn” was recognized. Little did the people of Berlin realize that a theological and musical giant was springing up in their midst. Tindley is often called a founding father of American gospel music. In 1902, after finishing his educational ventures and pastoring several churches in Philadelphia, he became pastor of the church where he had served as janitor 25 years earlier. After bearing eight children, his wife Daisy, passed away in 1924, the very day the congregation entered the new sanctuary for the first time.  Initially struggling with her death, he would later explain, “one day I will understand it better by and by”. That is how the song was born. He could not understand why his wife had to go like that, but he will understand it better by and by.

Tindley has been called “the prince of preachers” (apologies to Charles Spurgeon), but I haven’t been able to get my hands on any of his sermons and don’t know what the style or content of his proclamation were. He is most famous for his gospel songs. He wrote and copyrighted the songs “When the storms of life are raging, stand by me,” and “If in my heart I do not yield, I’ll overcome some day,” which have had long afterlives in soul music and civil rights anthems, and the durable classic “We’ll Understand it Better By And By.”

Tindley’s original songs weren’t hymns (he continued to use Methodist hymns as the mainstay of congregational singing in his church) and they weren’t black spirituals, but they weren’t the “gospel songs” of the white revivalists either.

One historian of black gospel music has said, “The hymns written by Tindley carried a camp-meeting intensity and fervor that would inspire the later development and crystallization of the black gospel style… He had created space in his songs to accommodate the call and response figures and improvisations that, together with flatted thirds and sevenths and other core-culture performance practices, would come to make the style.”

Poetically, Tindley was the kind of writer who incorporated the speech patterns of everyday usage into his work. He wrote the way people talked. As a result, his songs are arrestingly simple.

Here is a good summary of his style, from a 1983 article by Horace Boyer, followed by the lyrics to “We’ll Understand it Better By and By.”

Charles Albert Tindley not only was a good composer; he was unique. He knew his Bible and could translate its archaic language into the soft, picturesque, and sonorous language of his people, and ultimately of all people. He was an extraordinary story teller; he told his stories in simple and direct melodies, using harmonies that did not overpower the simplicity of his messages. Above all, he left the spaces necessary for gospel singers to become engrossed in their singing. He too knew that gospel music was the singer’s art, not that of the composer. The progenitor of black-American gospel music was singer and composer in one.

1 Trials dark on ev’ry hand,
and we cannot understand
All the ways that God would lead us
to that blessed Promised Land;
But He’ll guide us with His eye,
and we’ll follow till we die;
We will understand it better by and by.

Chorus:
By and by, when the morning comes,
When the saints of God are gathered home,
We will tell the story how we’ve overcome;
We will understand it better by and by.

2 Oft our cherished plans have failed,
disappointments have prevailed,
And we’ve wandered in the darkness,
heavyhearted and alone;
But we’re trusting in the Lord,
and according to His Word,
We will understand it better by and by. [Chorus]

3 Temptations, hidden snares
often take us unawares,
And our hearts are made to bleed
for some thoughtless word or deed,
And we wonder why the test
when we try to do our best,
But we’ll understand it better by and by.