Hold the Fort!/Six Acres of Irishmen
Six Acres of Irishmen
After Bliss published "Hold the Fort" in sheet music, he brought it out as one of the numbers in Gospel Songs, which he published in 1874.[52] Meanwhile, in 1873, Sankey had taken it abroad when he and Moody carried the gospel to the mother country with perhaps little to go on other than faith, hope, and charity. Edgar J. Goodspeed states that they went to London upon the invitation of three English sponsors, two of whom died before the evangelists reached their destination.[53] On the other hand, The New York Times reports that "Moody and Sankey were sent to England by Mr. Barnum as a . . . speculation."[54] In any case, their revivalistic sweep through England, Scotland, and Ireland, lasting into the summer of 1875, is famous in the annals of evangelism. Indeed, it has been said that they were "the instruments in a religious awakening comparable only to that under the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield."[55] In 1875, in London alone, according to one report, they held 285 meetings that were attended "by fully 2,500,000 people," but perhaps 1,500,000 Londoners is a better estimate, for Bernard A. Weisberger says that "the attendance figures were not exactly marvels of statistical accuracy."[56]
Wherever they went, whether to Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast, or London, "Hold the Fort" was immensely popular. A Glasgow commentator, seeking to explain the popularity of "Hold the Fort" and of other songs in Sankey's repertory, said of Sankey's music that only
a small portion of it has any claim to originality. Much of it is so Scottish and Irish in its construction that to our people familiar with such music, it is sometimes difficult to realize that what we hear is sacred song. Usually short turns and strains remind us irresistibly of something we know, but cannot recall. In some of the melodies the effect is more marked. Who does not feel the sweetness of Irish melody in "Sweet by-and-by" . . . and the thorough Scottish ring in such songs as "Hold the Fort," "Sweet Hour of Prayer" . . . and many others. It takes us by surprise to hear gospel truth wafted in the strains of our national music; but is it not possible that this may be the true though unexpected reason why these simple songs have found such a direct and wonderful entrance to the Scottish heart?[57]
The same critic observed that Sankey used his organ or harmonium "as a mere accessory" and sometimes completely drowned it out with his voice,[58] which a friend once described as "a high baritone of exceptional volume, purity and sympathy."[59] To Edgar Johnson Goodspeed, however, David's harp itself was "the prototype" of Sankey's harmonium.[60]
Scotland had been approached by the evangelists in 1873 with considerable misgivings, for organs and "human hymns" long had been forbidden in Scottish churches. The Presbyterians were assured, however, that Sankey's harmonium was quite small, and it was admitted along with the musician. At the first meeting in Edinburgh, Sankey had to appear alone because Moody had a severe cold. Everything considered, the singer was understandably fearful when he suggested at the end of the service that the packed house join him in the chorus of "Hold the Fort." What followed "sounded like the clans a'gangin' to war!"[61] Apparently, Edinburgh approved.
Describing a meeting in Dublin in 1874, for which between four and five thousand persons assembled in the Free Trade Hall at eight o'clock one "frosty" December morning, a reporter remarked that as Sankey began to play "Hold the Fort," which was "a tune well known at these meetings," the congregation struck into it "with one mighty voice. . . . The words have a martial, inspiriting sound, and as the verse rolled forth, filling the great hall with a mighty and musical noise, one could see the eyes of strong men fill with tears."[62]
The names of Moody and Sankey seemed to be on almost everyone's lips. Sankey recalled that a clown in a Dublin circus said to his partner: "I am rather Moody tonight; how do you feel?" To this the second clown replied: "I feel rather Sankey-monious." According to Sankey, "this by-play was not only met with hisses, but the whole audience arose and joined with tremendous effect in singing . . . 'Hold the fort, for I am coming.'"[63] Apparently Sankey and his admirers who repeated the story were not much more amused by it than the Irishmen who found in Bliss's song an eloquent reproof of a couple of waggish clowns who, if not of a Catholic persuasion, were just plain put out because the revival had interfered earlier with circus attendance.[64]
It was also in Dublin that a body of Catholic priests heard the revivalists. Although we have not found it recorded that they sang "Hold the Fort," they are said to have expressed the view that if Moody and Sankey stayed a little longer St. Patrick surely would be displaced by a Yankee.[65] As a matter of fact, the hierarchy finally took notice. "Cardinal Cullen, seeing his flock straying in such large numbers . . . published an interdict forbidding such conduct," which, however, "did not prevent the conversion of sinners of Romish proclivities."[66]
In Belfast, Moody "spoke to six acres of Irishmen,"[67] and Sankey was later told that a prisoner in the local gaol heard "Hold the Fort" through an open window as Sankey sang it in another building and, probably without ever seeing the singer, reformed to become one of the most enthusiastic revival helpers in town.[68]
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Finally, in 1875, Moody and Sankey sailed from Liverpool for home aboard the Spain. As the ship passed down the Mersey, the people in the tender who had come to see them off sang "Hold the Fort" and "Work, for the Night is Coming" while the evangelists stood at the ship's rail, bowing and waving their handkerchiefs.
Years later Sankey recollected that the famous philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury "said at our farewell meeting in London: 'If Mr. Sankey has done no more than teach the people to sing "Hold the Fort," he has conferred an inestimable blessing on the British Empire.'"[69] As Elias Nason put it:
It was a pleasure never to be forgotten, to hear ten thousand Londoners singing heartily "Hold the Fort," and other familiar songs. Everybody seemed to know them; and in the cars, the homes of the people, as well as in the churches, they were heard. It was almost impossible to get out of the reach of these holy, heavenly melodies. The hearts of the old and young were filled with them.[70]
In Canada, about the time that Moody and Sankey returned to America, Tommy Dodd, "the greatest drunkard and wife-beater in Yorkville," was persuaded to leave the saloon for the church by hearing a carpenter and his apprentice sing "Hold the Fort." The song may have reached Canada only a short time before, with the first (1875) edition of Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs. On a brief trip to England in 1879, Sankey appropriately sang "Hold the Fort" at a London meeting at which the famous British evangelist Charles H. Spurgeon delivered a sermon on a pending army bill at the behest of "a Christian gentleman, a member of . . . parliament." When the congregation joined in the chorus "it was heard blocks away." At that time Sankey was en route to Switzerland where, "ascending the Rigi," he "sang 'Hold the Fort,' much to the interest of the Swiss peasants." Presumably he did not sing this song when he visited Turkey in 1898, for he reported that the Sultan had banned both "Hold the Fort" and "Dare to Be a Daniel," another of Bliss's songs.[71]
"Hold the Fort" thus became a part of the popular church music of the British Isles and was not unknown in other foreign places. Not surprisingly, it also came to serve the secular cause of the British trade-union movement, as it did the cause of labor in the United States. Meanwhile, the old song continued to make gospel history in its native land.