When the Roll is Called Up Yonder

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, shall live.

John 11:25

This old favorite was inspired by disappointment. James Black was calling roll one day for a youth meeting at his church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. One name didn't answer--young, Bessie, the daughter of an alcoholic. Crestfallen at her absence, James commented, "O God, when my own name is called up yonder, may I be there to respond!" Returning home, a thought struck him while opening the gate. Entering the house, he went to the piano and wrote the words and music effortlessly.

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Years later, this song comforted a group of traumatized children in a Japanese concentration camp. In his book, A Boy's War, David Mitchell, tells of being in boarding school in Chefoo, China, during the Japanese invasion. On November 5, 1942, the students and faculty were marched from their campus and eventually ended up in Weihsien Concentration Camp.

Among the students was Brian Thompson, a lanky teenager. One evening about a year before the war ended, Brian was restless, waiting for the evening roll call which was long overdue. A bare wire from the searchlight tower was sagging low, and some of the older boys were jumping up and touching it with their fingers. "Whew, I got a shock off that," said one.

Brian decided to try. Being taller than the others, his hand was drawn into the wire, and it came down with him. When his bare feet hit the damp ground, the electricity shot through him like bolts of lightning. his mother, who had been interred with the students, tried to reach him, but the others held her back or she, too, would have been electrocuted. Finally someone found an old wooden stool and managed to detach the electrical wire, but it was too late.

At roll call that night, when the name "Brian Thompson" was called, there was no answer. David Mitchell later wrote: "Our principal and Mr. Houghton led a very solemn yet triumphant funeral service the next day. The shortness of life and the reality of eternity were brought home to us with force as Paul Bruce related that Brian had missed roll call in camp but had answered one in Heaven. How important it was for us to sing and know, 'When the Roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.'"

Taken from the book: Then Sings My Soul

(Don't forget to pause the blog background music.)


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