Mrs. Mary Bridges Canady Slade was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1826. She was well educated, a teacher, poet, and a minister’s wife. She was an assistant editor of The New England Journal of Education, and the author of a children’s magazine, Wide-Awake. Mary authored hymns, Sunday School materials, and books on education, primarily for training teachers. She and her husband were active in the underground railroad. She spent her entire life living in Fall River, passing away in 1882 at the age of 56. Source: hymnary.org/person/Slade_Mary
I couldn’t find a backstory for this particular song, but it was a favorite, sung in my Primary Sabbath School class when I was a child. So simple a message that even a child can understand that we must take the gospel to everyone.
Tell It Again!
Into the tent where a gypsy boy lay,
Dying alone at the close of the day,
News of salvation we carried; said he,
“Nobody ever has told it to me.”
“Did He so love me, a poor little boy?
Send unto me the good tidings of joy?
Need I not perish? My hand will He hold?
Nobody ever the story has told!”
Bending, we caught the last words of his breath,
Just as he entered the valley of death,
“God sent His Son!” “Whosoever,” said he;
“Then I am sure that He sent Him for me!”
Smiling, he said, as his last sigh he spent,
“I am so glad that for me He was sent!”
Whispered, while low sank the sun in the west,
“Lord, I believe;” “tell it now to the rest!”
Tell it again! Tell it again!
Salvation’s story repeat o’er and o’er.
Till none can say of the children of men,
“Nobody ever has told me before.”