Secret Prayer, The

DESCRIPTION: Call and response. Verses are a single line, repeated. Responses alternate: "Ah-a-a" and "I've been on the secret prayer." Verse lines include "I've died once to die no more," "I've been down and viewed the cross," "I've been down to Jacob's well"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1893 (Edwards-BahamaSongsAndStories)
KEYWORDS: nonballad religious Bible
FOUND IN: West Indies(Bahamas)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Edwards-BahamaSongsAndStories 24, "Um Died Once To Die No Mo'" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES [143 words]: The description is based on the Edwards-BahamaSongsAndStories text. Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well (John 4).
"Secret prayer" is in some hymn book hymns, though not in this context (see, for example, Starke Dupuy, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (Louisville: Morton and Griswold, 1841 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), #110 p. 362: ("Let us ask the important question"), "'Tis to hear the Holy Spirit Prompting us to secret prayer To rejoice in Jesus' merit, Yet continual sorrow bear"). King James Matthew 6:6 has, "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."
The Edwards-BahamaSongsAndStories text seems to me more in the line of a recounting of a spiritual journey as among Spiritual Baptists. - BS
Last updated in version 4.2
File: Edwa024

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