Handwritten memorial poem: 'Is it well with the Child? / Is it well with Thee?' (2 Kings 4:26)
Book 2, Page 69 ·1911
Transcription
A single sheet of unlined paper closely written in brown ink in two columns. Each column has a heading question and a long answer in flowing verse. Several line-end words have been carried beneath the line for lack of width (rendered here as a soft break).
Left column:
Is it well with the Child? 2d Kings 4:26
Yes it is well! For he has gone from me From my poor care, my human fallacy, Straight to the Master’s school, the Shepherd’s love Blest are they whose training is above!
He will grow up in Heaven, will never know The conflicts that attend our life below.
He from his earliest conscious ness shall walk With Christ himself in glory; he shall talk With sinless little children, and his ear No sound discordant, no harsh word shall hear.
Nay but I have no words with which to tell How well it is for him — how well, how well!
Right column:
Is it well with Thee?
Yes it is well! For white with anguish wild I gave to God who asked him, gave my child; He gave to me strong faith & peace & joy: Gave me their blessings, when He took my child; He gave Himself to me in boundless grace, Within my deepest depth He took His place, Made Heaven look home-like, made my bleeding heart In all the grief of other hearts take part; Brought down my pride, burnt up my hidden dross, Made me fling down the world and clasp the cross; Ah! how my inmost soul doth swell, When I declare that all with me is well!
AI Notes
A single unfolded sheet of unlined paper closely written in brown ink in two columns. The left column is headed ‘Is it well with the Child? / 2d Kings 4:26’ and answered ‘Yes it is well!’ — a Christian consolation poem on the death of a child. The right column is headed ‘Is it well with Thee?’ and gives the bereaved mother’s affirmative reply. Almost certainly mounted in the album as a memorial for the infant Amy Perry Walker (‘Buzzie’), the compiler’s first daughter, who died June 30, 1911, and was buried in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston. The poem is the well-known nineteenth-century hymn often titled ‘Is It Well With the Child?’ (a metrical paraphrase of the Shunammite woman’s reply in 2 Kings 4:26); copied here by hand. Line 5 reads ‘will never know’ with ‘know’ placed above the line as an interlinear correction; right column line 4 is ‘blessings’ (plural); the swept-down trailing words ‘bleeding heart’, ‘hidden dross’, and ‘clasp the cross’ are written in continuation under the lines above (the writer ran out of width and turned the phrases down).
The scriptural epigraph alludes to the Shunammite woman of 2 Kings 4, who, when her only son had just died, answered the prophet Elisha’s messenger that all was well — a stock 19th-century image of submissive faith under bereavement. The verse paraphrased here was widely printed in mourning-card and consolation-poetry collections of the period. Copied into the album, almost certainly, as a memorial for the infant Amy “Buzzie” Walker (died 30 June 1911).