Face To Face With Christ, My Savior: A Song History

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The words of "Face to Face" are by Carrie Ellis Breck (1855–1934), a Vermont-born writer who married Frank A. Breck in 1884 and wrote verse and prose for religious and household papers; older hymnals often credit her simply as "Mrs. Frank A. Breck."[1] Her text is dated 1898, and its picture of meeting Christ face to face draws on 1 Corinthians 13:12.[2][3] The music is by Grant Colfax Tullar (1869–1950), a Connecticut-born Methodist minister who spent about ten years as song leader for the evangelist George A. Hilton and in 1893 helped found the Tullar-Meredith company, a publisher of church and Sunday school music.[4] His tune, known as FACE TO FACE, is also dated 1898.[5]

Painting on parchment of Christ facing forward, raising one hand in blessing and holding a crystal orb topped by a cross

Gerard David, Holy Face, tempera and gold leaf on parchment that has been trimmed and laid down on thin walnut, ca. 1485–90. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.

Tullar sang the hymn at the First Presbyterian Church in Vineland, New Jersey, and it was published in Sermons in Song, No. 2, edited by Tullar and Isaac H. Meredith and issued by the Tullar-Meredith company in 1899.[3] The hymn went on to appear in well over two hundred hymnals and has been translated into languages including Spanish, French and Swahili.[2] Later twentieth-century books that carry it include Hymns for the Living Church (1974) and the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal (1985).[3] Larry Conger includes it in Hymns Of Faith Tab Book, a collection of 21 hymns for mountain dulcimer, mostly in DAD tuning, published by Fingers Of Steel.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Face To Face With Christ, My Savior"

Sources

  1. Hymnary.org: "Carrie E. Breck".
  2. Hymnary.org: "Face to face with Christ my Savior".
  3. The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology: "Face to face with Christ my Saviour".
  4. Hymnary.org: "Grant Colfax Tullar".
  5. Hymnary.org: "FACE TO FACE (Tullar)".
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Hymns Of Faith Tab Book".
  7. Image: Gerard David, Holy Face, tempera and gold leaf on parchment that has been trimmed and laid down on thin walnut, ca. 1485–90. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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