Band of brothers everywhere

The occasion of my great-great grandfather Loren Webb's death was significant enough to deserve mention in the extensive biography of Rev. John B. Mc Ferrin, a preacher with the Methodist Episcopal Church-South during the Civil War era. (Please refer back to my post on April 7, 2008 for Loren's obituary written by Rev. Mc Ferrin, and further description of the surrounding circumstances.) Loren Webb had been a preacher with the Methodist Episcopal Church - North.

With many thanks again to cousin Jonathan Webb Deiss who located/acquired a copy of this biography and located the pages therein that refer to Loren, here is the text in its entirety:

In the winter of 1881 the Rev. Loren Webb, a superannuated minister of the New York East Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, lay dying in the railroad depot in Nashville, Tennessee. To Dr. McFerrin, who had hastened to his side, he said: “I want a place to die: I sent for a Methodist preacher; we are a band of brothers everywhere.” The Doctor replied: “Brother, we are one in love; and here we, in the hour of trial, know no North, no South.” A Northern Methodist preacher (the Rev. E. Warriner) thus put this affecting incident into verse:

“We are the Band of Brothers Everywhere”

The watchman stood in silence on the tower,
For want of strength to sound the clarion call;
He only watched for the appointed hour
His station to resign on Zion's wall.

The summons came; the faithful herald heard;
God gave him strength for one more bugle blast,
And whispered in his ear a thrilling word
To utter—it should be his best and last.

The watchman put the trumpet to his mouth;
Webb's dying words rang out upon the air:
“John Wesley's legions know no North, no South;
We are a band of brothers everywhere.”

No bickerings pollute the dying breath,
No thought of latitude when heaven is near;
In sorrow, trial, loneliness, and death,
“We are a band of brothers everywhere.”

The bonds of holy brotherhood are strong,
A common name and heritage we share,
Sections and feuds can not estrange us long;
“We are a band of brothers everywhere.”

No pass-word, grip, or signal we require;
Distress may come, but with it tender care;
Kind arms encircle us when we expire:
“We are a band of brothers everywhere.”

O'er the wide world it may be ours to roam,
And we may fall—it shall not matter where--
Some helper we shall find, though far from home;
“We are a band of brothers everywhere.”

Let each in charity act well his part;
All harsh upholdings let us hence forbear;
This watch-word carry in each loving heart:
“We are a band of brothers everywhere.”

Pass the word along the Methodist lines all around the world. We are a band of brothers everywhere! The day is coming when some bard, inspired by the same spirit, amid the still happier conditions that will bless the Church of God as it nears its final triumph and promised glory, will sing a still nobler song with the same sweet refrain: “We are a band of brothers everywhere.”

Excerpted from John B. McFerrin, A Biography, by O.P. Fitzgerald, D.D.; Nashville, Tennessee: Publishing House of the M.E. Church, South. J.D. Barbee, Agent, 1888, pp. 399-400. This book is digitized and made available online by Google Book Search: http://books.google.com/