It may have been used by slaves to signal a secret gathering, since such assemblies were illegal. This hymn is a traditional spiritual, probably from the antebellum period in the American south. Lord's Supper–during preparation for the sacrament or during distribution of the bread and wine. 3) "on our knees." The refrain ends with a prayer for mercy, an African American kyrie (see PHH 258) that reminds us of the tax collector's prayer in Luke 18:13. The text discerns participation in the Lord's Supper as a humble act in which we not only eat the bread (st. it seems was a signal song of Virginia slaves during the eighteenth century who used it and similar ones to convene their secret meetings. relates hardly at all to holy communion, which does not necessarily require early morning administration or a devotee who faces east. Miles Mark Fisher notes in Negro Slave Songs in the United States (1953), The song's use at communion services probably dates from after the American Civil War. The most notable alteration in the Psalter Hymnal is the phrase "to the Lord of life" in place of the original "to the rising sun," in which "sun" was an ambiguous metaphor referring to God. A look through modern hymnals will reveal an array of variations on the text. Other stanzas have been added by oral tradition. Some of the stanzas of this African American spiritual may date back to the eighteenth century.
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