In The Garden: A Song History
"In the Garden" is the work of Charles Austin Miles (1868–1946), who trained in pharmacy but, once his songwriting had begun to succeed, joined the Hall-Mack Publishing Company as a full-time music editor in 1898.[1] He wrote both the words and the melody, and the song first appeared in 1912 in The Gospel Message No. 2, a Hall-Mack collection he helped edit.[1][2] Miles later described its origin to his colleague George Sanville: in March 1912, he said, he was reading the twentieth chapter of John when the scene of Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb came to him so vividly that he set down the poem at once and composed the tune that same evening.[1][2] The three stanzas and refrain retell that Easter morning encounter from Mary's point of view, filling in details the Gospel itself does not give.[1][2]
Wilhelm Trübner, Rose Hedge, oil on canvas, 1910. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).
The song found its first wide audience on the revival circuit. Homer Rodeheaver, song leader for the evangelist Billy Sunday, used it heavily in Sunday's campaigns, and it was also sung often at Billy Graham's campaigns decades later.[1] The oldest known recording appears to be a 1917 version by the Apollo Quartet of Boston, though sources differ on the label: the Hymnology Archive names Emerson,[1] while the Discography of American Historical Recordings lists an Edison session on January 18 of that year.[3] Rodeheaver himself recorded it as a duet with Virginia Asher for Columbia in 1918.[1] Since then it has been sung by performers as different as Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Randy Travis.[1] Hymnary.org counts it in 343 hymnals, and it is still recommended for Easter services.[2]
Its warmth has also drawn criticism. The Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (1993) called it "one of the most requested of hymns" while noting that it was also among the least liked, with some detractors condemning it as sensual and self-absorbed.[1] The church musician Donald Hustad defended it, arguing that singers who understand its Resurrection setting find real substance in it, and he included it in the hymnals Hymns for the Living Church (1974) and The Worshiping Church (1990).[1]
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