[Oe List ...] More on Brother Van

Tue Jul 20 09:28:29 CDT 2010

Thanks Herman - sounds like he didn't write the hymn either - 

What did I say his lst name was? Orsdel is correct - my brain has had a couple of train wrecks lately. 

John C. Montgomery 
(c) 678-468-4913 
www.notesfromthebalcony.com 

Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; 
justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance. 
Faith-based charity provides crumbs from the table; 
faith-based justice offers a place at the table. 

- Bill Moyers, television journalist and social commentator. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Herman Greene" <hfgreene at mindspring.com> 
To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe at wedgeblade.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 10:08:41 AM 
Subject: [Oe List ...] More on Brother Van 

John C. Montgomery 
(c) 678-468-4913 
www.notesfromthebalcony.com 

Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; 
justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance. 
Faith-based charity provides crumbs from the table; 
faith-based justice offers a place at the table. 

- Bill Moyers, television journalist and social commentator. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Herman Greene" <hfgreene at mindspring.com> 
To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe at wedgeblade.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 10:08:41 AM 
Subject: [Oe List ...] More on Brother Van 

See 

http://www.metnet.mt.gov/Special/Quarries%20From%20The%20Gulch/HTM/Brother%20Van%20Part%201.pdf 

See also 

The area we know today as Yellowstone National Park was made a National Park by an act of Congress on March 1, l872. From the inception of Yellowstone as a National Park, it was administered by the U.S. Army until 1916 when the National Park Service was founded. 

In late June of l873 a young Methodist minister William Wesley Van Orsdel came into the park with a clerical friend. There were a number of people camped near the lower Geyser Basin and Rev. Orsdel held a Methodist service for them on Sunday, July 4, 1873. This was the first religious service held in Yellowstone National Park. 

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=86080641494&topic=14319 

Tim Powers Originally from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Van Orsdel came to Fort Benton, Montana in 1872. Arriving on June 30, he preached that afternoon in a local saloon where he received the nickname "Brother Van" which stayed with him the rest of his life. 

For forty-seven years, Brother Van set the tone for Methodism in Montana. He held a service almost every day and traveled some 15,000 miles a year. One historian has observed, "For the small Methodist constituency in Montana to maintain a college, a hospital, and a children's home and school during the frontier days was all but impossible, and yet Brother Van through faith, prayer, persistence and sacrifice somehow managed to convince the people that it could be done." 

He was loved by the Indians of Montana who gave him the name Great Heart. In 1873, they took him on his first buffalo hunt, an event reproduced in a painting by the cowboy artist Charles M. Russell. Russell, affectionately recalling in a letter the first time he met Brother Van, wrote in his rough prose, "I have met you many times sinc that, Brother Van, sometimes in lonely places, but you never were lonsun or alone, for a man with seared hands and feet stood beside you and near him there is no hate, so all you met loved you." 

As a presiding elder, Brother Van always credited the growth in his district to the pastors and people. He reported to the annual conference, "You, brethren of the ministry and laity, with your wives, are the victors. You have been instruments, under God, to bring about the results." As a boy, Brother Van heard President Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address and he frequently repeated Lincoln's phrase, "under God." His colleagues in the annual conference showed their respect for him by electing him a delegate to General Conference six times. 

Brother Van was particularly fond of a song by W.A. Spencer called "Harvest Time" which became a favorite of Montana Methodists. 

The seed I have scattered in springtime with weeping 
And watered with tears and with joy from on high, 
Another may shout when the harvesters' reaping 
Shall gather my grain in the sweet by and by. 
Over and over, yea, deeper and deeper, 
My heart is pierced through with life's sorrowing cry, 
But the tears of the sower and the songs of the reaper 
Shall mingle together in joy by and by. 
--B.W. Coe 

This says the hymn was by Spencer. 

Also 

http://www.intermountain.org/cen/index.php?page=montana_women 

His last name apparently is “Orsdel” 

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of nancy 
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 9:46 AM 
To: Order Ecumenical Community 
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Songs of the Reaper 

Dear Marilyn and others, 

    According to the earliest song book I have, Songs of the New Earth, the coda is: 

        "Then palms of victory, crowns of glory,  palms of victory I shall wear!" 

Sorry, no plurals in the early versions!  Just palms of victory that always have the painful crowns of glory! 

            G&P, 

                Nan Grow 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: marilyncrocker at juno.com 

To: oe at wedgeblade.net 

Sent: Monday, July 19, 2010 11:38 PM 

Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Songs of the Reaper 

Hi Jann, 

Yes -- that makes more sense:  Palms of victory, (Palm Sunday) "  then was it also Palms of glory , and then the finale,  C rowns (or palms?) of victory (possibly recalling the thorns)  we shall wear ?  

 I could make a theological case for that, but I'm remembering it was Palms, Palms and Palms.  Who has other recollections? 

Marilyn 

On Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:22:31 EDT LAURELCG at aol.com writes: 

I thought it was "Palms of victory." 

Jann 

Marilyn R. Crocker, Ed.D 
Crocker & Associates, Inc. 
123 Sanborn Road 
West Newfield, ME 04095 
(207) 793-3711 

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