My name is graven on his hands.
My name is written on his heart.
I know that while in heaven he stands,
No tongue can bid me thence depart.
This line is from the hymn known today as Before The Throne of God Above, penned by Charitie Lees Bancroft (nee Smith) at the age of 18 in eastern Ireland. Very little is known about Smith: she was born in 1841, her dad was an Anglican minister, and she wrote for a leaflet published in the Ulster Revival of 1859. Her poetry and hymnody appears in a handful of small, local hymnals, and was picked up by a few bigger ones as well, such as the 1867 edition of Lyra Britannica. She also released a collection entitled Within the Veil in 1867. Records indicate that at some point, she married a Brit named Arthur Bancroft in Scotland, and was then twice widowed. She died in Oakland, California in 1923 with the last name deCheney; her body lies in mountain View Cemetery. Beyond this information dictated by general records, no stories were preserved, no journals were found, and in fact, for some reason, Google even thinks she looked like this:
My name is written on his heart.
I know that while in heaven he stands,
No tongue can bid me thence depart.
This line is from the hymn known today as Before The Throne of God Above, penned by Charitie Lees Bancroft (nee Smith) at the age of 18 in eastern Ireland. Very little is known about Smith: she was born in 1841, her dad was an Anglican minister, and she wrote for a leaflet published in the Ulster Revival of 1859. Her poetry and hymnody appears in a handful of small, local hymnals, and was picked up by a few bigger ones as well, such as the 1867 edition of Lyra Britannica. She also released a collection entitled Within the Veil in 1867. Records indicate that at some point, she married a Brit named Arthur Bancroft in Scotland, and was then twice widowed. She died in Oakland, California in 1923 with the last name deCheney; her body lies in mountain View Cemetery. Beyond this information dictated by general records, no stories were preserved, no journals were found, and in fact, for some reason, Google even thinks she looked like this:
I'm not kidding...
She wrote Before The Throne of God Above in 1863. Her original title The Advocate was dropped and replaced with the song's first line when indexed into American hymnals, as was common method, which is a great loss for the American church, as The Advocate is the thesis of her entire song.
I don't know what day to day life was like for Bancroft, but I do know that Bancroft grew up among a people for whom no one advocated. She was born and raised in the heart of the Great Famine among a community that was constantly re-marginalized by changing land laws, insurmountable poverty, and British control. National unrest reached its peak the year this hymn was published, and, as often happens in history in such times, so didn't the arts. Poetry, songs, and tales replaced potatoes and corn as Ireland's greatest export, and this abandoned people gave birth to the generation of W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Oscar Wilde. While Irish literature crescendoed into a plea for advocacy, Bancroft spoke up that she had a "strong and perfect plea" from an advocate "who ever lives and pleads for me."
The role of an advocate has been on my mind a lot lately, as I was recently assigned in my job as a Residential Counselor to be an Advocate to one youth. I regularly meet with a team of people to speak on behalf of this child, make cases for the services needed, and speak to the overall well being of the youth.
The process has been both emotional and redemptive, as becoming an advocate has forced me to see the ways that I haven't had one, and has peeled open layers of the Gospel that I never knew were there. Oddly, about every 5 years, I have lost the number one advocate in my life-- my father left, my grandmother died, my church split, I got settled in a new church and the youth pastor went on a weird tirade, and my favorite and most supportive teacher burned out. I've worked 12 jobs in 8 years, I've fought for help in a school not equipped for students like me with learning challenges, and I've battled with my insurance company daily for three months. There have been nights where I've needed a place to stay, and I've gotten off work at 11 PM, took the bus 2 hours across town to stay with my friend, and gotten up at 4:30 the next day to take the bus back and do it all over again. Like Ireland, so much of my writing has been a literary plea. I've written stories upon stories about people who are marginalized, and now, these are the only stories of mine that publishers ever show interest in. From where I am now, I look back and see that so much of my existence has been spent searching and pleading for an advocate without even realizing it, so I don't think it's exactly and irony or an accident that I've grown up to become one.
My literary icon, Flannery O'Connor, once stated in an interview, "to the hard of hearing, you shout, and to the almost blind, you draw large, startling figures." Later 19th and early 20th century Irish literature does indeed put out some startling figures-- addicts, pedophiles, con-artists, and, most startling of all, children in their innocence who face the world where these characters roam-- but for all of Ireland's shouting and startling, the blind and deaf world barely even turned its head. For all of my writing, working, moving, and persuading, the world has given me the same response.
Bancroft's song speaks a powerful, long-sought answer to an abandoned nation. As I am simultaneously learning how to be an advocate and looking for one of my own, she teaches me that I, too, have an advocate, who ever lives and pleads for me. And it dawns on me that perhaps the world doesn't respond because everyone else is out looking for the same things that I am-- ultimate redemption, a perfect advocate and salvation. And out of an impoverished hamlet in eastern Ireland, an invisible minister's child makes the answer known:
Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea
A great High Priest whose name is love
Who ever lives and pleads for me
My name is graven on His hands
My name is written on His heart
I know that while in heav’n He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart
When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God the Just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me
Behold Him there, the risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless Righteousness
The great unchangeable I AM
The King of glory and of grace
One with Himself, I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my Savior and my God
With Christ my Savior and my God
From the underside,
Stephanie
I don't know what day to day life was like for Bancroft, but I do know that Bancroft grew up among a people for whom no one advocated. She was born and raised in the heart of the Great Famine among a community that was constantly re-marginalized by changing land laws, insurmountable poverty, and British control. National unrest reached its peak the year this hymn was published, and, as often happens in history in such times, so didn't the arts. Poetry, songs, and tales replaced potatoes and corn as Ireland's greatest export, and this abandoned people gave birth to the generation of W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Oscar Wilde. While Irish literature crescendoed into a plea for advocacy, Bancroft spoke up that she had a "strong and perfect plea" from an advocate "who ever lives and pleads for me."
The role of an advocate has been on my mind a lot lately, as I was recently assigned in my job as a Residential Counselor to be an Advocate to one youth. I regularly meet with a team of people to speak on behalf of this child, make cases for the services needed, and speak to the overall well being of the youth.
The process has been both emotional and redemptive, as becoming an advocate has forced me to see the ways that I haven't had one, and has peeled open layers of the Gospel that I never knew were there. Oddly, about every 5 years, I have lost the number one advocate in my life-- my father left, my grandmother died, my church split, I got settled in a new church and the youth pastor went on a weird tirade, and my favorite and most supportive teacher burned out. I've worked 12 jobs in 8 years, I've fought for help in a school not equipped for students like me with learning challenges, and I've battled with my insurance company daily for three months. There have been nights where I've needed a place to stay, and I've gotten off work at 11 PM, took the bus 2 hours across town to stay with my friend, and gotten up at 4:30 the next day to take the bus back and do it all over again. Like Ireland, so much of my writing has been a literary plea. I've written stories upon stories about people who are marginalized, and now, these are the only stories of mine that publishers ever show interest in. From where I am now, I look back and see that so much of my existence has been spent searching and pleading for an advocate without even realizing it, so I don't think it's exactly and irony or an accident that I've grown up to become one.
My literary icon, Flannery O'Connor, once stated in an interview, "to the hard of hearing, you shout, and to the almost blind, you draw large, startling figures." Later 19th and early 20th century Irish literature does indeed put out some startling figures-- addicts, pedophiles, con-artists, and, most startling of all, children in their innocence who face the world where these characters roam-- but for all of Ireland's shouting and startling, the blind and deaf world barely even turned its head. For all of my writing, working, moving, and persuading, the world has given me the same response.
Bancroft's song speaks a powerful, long-sought answer to an abandoned nation. As I am simultaneously learning how to be an advocate and looking for one of my own, she teaches me that I, too, have an advocate, who ever lives and pleads for me. And it dawns on me that perhaps the world doesn't respond because everyone else is out looking for the same things that I am-- ultimate redemption, a perfect advocate and salvation. And out of an impoverished hamlet in eastern Ireland, an invisible minister's child makes the answer known:
Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea
A great High Priest whose name is love
Who ever lives and pleads for me
My name is graven on His hands
My name is written on His heart
I know that while in heav’n He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart
When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God the Just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me
Behold Him there, the risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless Righteousness
The great unchangeable I AM
The King of glory and of grace
One with Himself, I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my Savior and my God
With Christ my Savior and my God
From the underside,
Stephanie