One of the best-known hymns in Christian denominations is “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.” The writer, James Milton Black, was born August 19, 1856, in South Hill, New York. He received an early musical education in singing and organ playing and was acquainted with such famous songsters of his day as Daniel Towner and John Howard. Around 1881, he moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where he carried on Christian work through the Pine Street Methodist Episcopal Church. During the week, he taught music and was a song leader, Sunday school teacher, and youth leader in his spare time. In addition to all this work, he edited hymnals. Black edited a dozen gospel song books and wrote nearly 1500 songs. He also served on the commission for the 1905 Methodist Hymnal.

But by far, “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder” is Black’s best-known hymn. Its lyrics were first published in a collection titled Songs of the Soul, and the song has since been translated into at least 14 languages and sung all over the world in a variety of Christian denominations.

As in many instances, the song was inspired by a personal experience. The story goes that Black was burdened because one of the young members of his Sunday School class had not answered the roll when her name was called. Someone said that Bessie was very ill and that the doctor held little hope for her life.  Black had found Bessie one day, neglected and in rags, sitting on the steps of a broken-down house "on the other side of the tracks" of the town. The little girl hesitated at first to accept the invitation of the tall, white-haired man to come to Sunday School because of her ragged clothes, but after someone left a box of new clothes at her house the next day, Bessie never failed to answer the roll call.

Every Sunday, James Black would look up and smile when he came to her name. As he walked home that day in 1893, he was thinking that the next time Bessie answered to her name, it would be at the great roll call as described in the Lamb’s Book of Life as outlined in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. The words for the hymn seemed to come to him spontaneously, and he wrote them down that afternoon. That night, he set them to music.

In one or two of his hymns, Mr. Black made use of words written by a Williamsport woman, Mrs. Kate Purvis. Mrs. Purvis, a member of a prominent family, was active in civic work and a very gifted poet. She was an assistant vocal instructor at Dickinson Seminary in the late 1880s.

In referring to writing his most famous work, Black explained, "I played the music just as it is found today in the hymn-books, note for note, and I have never dared to change a single word or a note of the song," he said.

A few days later, he had the sad opportunity of explaining in public how he came to write the song when it was sung at the funeral of the girl whose absence at roll call had inspired it.

James Black died on December 21^st, 1938, at the age of 82. He and his wife Lucy Levan Black, who died fourteen years later, are buried at the Wildwood Cemetery in Williamsport.

One other footnote to the hymn, it caused quite a stir among members of the press in 1945. Prime Minister Winston Churchill quoted the hymn in response to a question about when the Big Three were going to meet; stated the Winnipeg Free Press: "Mr. Churchill, in one of his somewhat puckish moods, replied that he did not know, but he added irreverently, 'When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.'" The British press expressed surprise at Churchill, an Anglican, being familiar with a hymn more associated with Methodism, Presbyterianism, and other "chapel" denominations or the revival meetings of Dwight L. Moody, Ira D. Sankey or R. A. Torrey, whereas the Free Press speculated that Churchill might well have heard the "catchy" tune in the street meetings held by the Salvation Army.

When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more,

And the morning breaks, eternal, bright and fair;

When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore,

And the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.

When the roll is called up yonder,

When the roll is called up yonder,

When the roll is called up yonder,

When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.