Excuse me, are you Adam Graham?

The very same?

And this is my old time radio snackwagon.

Welcome to the Old Time Radio snack Wagon, where we serve up a bite sized portion of old time radio.

And now here's your snack wagon host Adam Graham.

Today, we are going back early ninety five years to an interesting series called The Story Behind the Song.

This was one of many programs that were syndicated on transcription disc by Transco in the early nineteen thirties.

These were particularly popular during that era, before national radio networks became so ubiquitous.

The Story Behind the Song harkened back to a time when the great songs really meant something.

It focused on songs that had, in many cases stood the test of time.

They'd been sung and passed along for decades or even a century or more.

Each song featured in the series had a story behind it, usually far more compelling than the typical I had a bad relationship, Now let me go ahead and sing a song about it that we get today.

These stories added meaning and a little bit of mistique to these songs that helped them persist in the public imagination.

In some cases, these songs have become more obscure in the twenty first century, but the stories more often than not hold up.

The Story behind the Song featured both popular hits as well as sacred songs that have become well known and well beloved by so many Americans of the time, and we're going to start with one of those as we bring you the second episode of the Story Behind the Song from May twenty one, nineteen thirty one.

Here is Blessed be the tie that binds.

The story behind the Song.

In the little English countryside town of Wayne's Getting Your in the year seventeen seventy two, the pastor of one of the small struggling churches was one doctor John Fawcett.

He and his good wife had shared the duties of ministering to their flock for many years, and now we're growing toward the winter of their lives in the happiness that comes from good works.

One day, while her husband was engrossed in study for his sermon the following Sunday, missus Fawcett was tending her flowers in the front garden.

Hey, oh, good morning to Jamie.

Is supposed very heavy.

This morning, Not very now I've most finished it anyways, Yeah, I've got a letter for Reverend missus Fawcett.

Oh really, where is it from?

Jamie?

Do you know?

Aye that I do.

It's from London Town, London.

Oh very well, thank you Jamie.

Oh that's all right.

I overtake five News at London, John, John, I here, I.

Am my dear in the study.

Jamie's just been here.

Oh were there any letters?

I one?

It's from London, John, London.

Well, I wonder who could be writing me from the big town.

You'd better open it, John, It looks very important.

It has a gold wax seal on the bed.

M Yes, what is it?

John?

Not bad news?

Good wife.

We've wanted to go together to new fields, haven't we.

We've talked about it oftentimes.

We've thought for years now that duties seemed to be calling us to leave our church here to follow our work somewhere else, haven't we?

Hy John, I've often told you I thought your training and your education had fitted you for bigger tasks.

Then we're offered here, and then.

Here it is, Oh, John, I here is the call.

One of the most influential churches in London sends me this, inviting me to take the work left by the good doctor Gill.

It will not be easy, my dear, leaving all the good people we've come to know so well and to love.

I the Davies, Missus, Hawks and the Twins, Old Jamie, Philip Rogers, the Jasons, and all the rest.

I know, yes, it will be hard telling them.

But John, I'm sure they'll understand.

Our friends here in our beloved little town would be the first to want you to take advantage of greater opportunities.

I think they will, I hope, So, my dear, let us kneel and pray over this.

Let us ask Almighty God that he guide us in the right path to duty.

Oh, Heavenly Father, we ask thy divine guidance in this South are to make this decision of great import.

We beseech Thee to give unto us some light, that we may know the right from the wrong, that we may separate the chaff from the wheat, our own desires from Thy service.

Well, the next Sunday came dawning brightly, seeming to portend that the course John Fawcett has chosen was sound, And as he concluded his sermon, and.

So, my friends, this is farewell.

We ask that you will pray for us in our new field.

That your thoughts may sustain us as we journey afar to our new work, to our new duties.

May God's judgment guide us all to a happier reunion before his golden throne, upon that great day of glory to come.

May the Lord watch between me and the when we are absent one from another.

Ah man a red.

They left without a word, they were said John, They just couldn't express what was in their hearts.

Oh, my dear, I hope we have done the right thing.

I'm sure we have, I'm sure of it.

The days sped along, busy active days of packing, of selecting household articles to take with them and those to be left behind.

One by one.

Pictures, books, little pieces of bric a brac all found their way into boxes and trunks and barrels.

Loving hands made the task easier, but none the less touching and pathetic.

Finally, the two wagons were loaded, and John Fawcett and his wife stood at the door of their cottage for one last look.

Well, this is good bye to the old place.

Aye, good bye to all the trials and tribulations and.

Hearty and the joys too.

We mustn't forget them.

No, come, John, the good people of the congregation are all gathered.

They are outside with the wagons.

We must not let them see tears in our eyes.

It would be unkind.

I cannot look back once more.

Let us go.

Then, look, John, here comes old.

Jamie, Well, Jamie, reverend, and missus Fawcett.

If you please, if it be God's will, let you go from us.

Then our adds go with you to London Town.

But please, even at this late hour, if it be in your odds to make a change of mind, well we'd be most grateful.

This is worse than I thought it could be, My.

Dear, we'll be out to the wagons in a moment, Jamie, Sir.

John, John, I cannot bear this all right, what can we do?

I'm sorry?

May me this decision, But it's too late.

Now, I guess.

No, no, it's not too late.

Why what do you mean.

Come with me?

You are right, unload the wagons.

Who if you will help us?

You mean you're not in a way.

No, we are not going to London.

We stay here in Waynscote.

With tears of joy.

Now the congregation, men, women, and the boys and girls make short work of unloading the Fawcett goods and replacing them in the little house.

Pictures went back to their old places on the walls, books flew into the shelves of the study, and dishes into the cupboards of the kitchen.

When the work was finished, in a quarter of the time it had taken to pack, those who had gathered there, led by Old Jamie, prayed in genuine thanksgiving that John Fawcett and his good wife had been guided to remain with them.

The next Sunday, Doctor John Fawcett ended his sermon with a few verses, words he had written in the quiet of his study the evening before words, inspired by the crisis he and his good wife had safely passed.

What were those words?

You know them, You've sung them many a time.

Lest be the tie that binds our hearts.

In Christian love, the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.

We share our mutual woes, our mutual burdens bear, and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.

As we stroll, we blans brand army, smarm our area sa A.

Welcome back.

A pretty good retelling of the story of this hymn, although I think it made one important and significant mistake versus what happened in real life.

It described reever In Fawsett in his life as being older.

In reality, Fawcett was only thirty three at the time and had been in the parish for seven years.

He also had a growing family which the poor parish was struggling to be able to support, so rather than being an old man choosing to maintain longstanding familiar ties, he was a young, up and coming preacher giving up what we would consider his big shot.

He was still a noted writer in theologian in his time and was offered the presidency of the Baptist Academy in Bristol twenty years later, and he turned that down, and he would continue his work, including being an educator who founded a school for children by expanding his own home.

All in all, he would remain in that same parish for fifty four years.

While Fawcett wrote more than one hundred hymns, Blessed Be the Tie that Binds was the most memorable and explained so much about his ministry and how he viewed the people he served.

It's time for me to close up the old Snackwagon.

But don't worry, We'll be back with another serving of old time radio goodness before you know it.

If you want to enjoy some of our longer form podcasts, you can feast away at my website at Great Detectives dot net.

Your emails are also welcome at Adam at snackwag Net.

The Old Time Radio Snackwagon comes to you from Boise, Idaho.

Your host is Adam Graham.

Sound production is by Ryn's Media LLC.

You can listen to past episodes of the Old Time Radio Snackwagon as well as connect on social media at our website at snackwagon dot net.

Email suggestions for episodes to Adam at snackwagon dot net.

This has been the Old Time Radio Snackwagon.

Until next time.

Goodbye,