Music by Grant Colfax Tullar, 1898 (1869-1950)

Face to face with Christ my Savior,

Face to face, what will it be,

When with rapture I behold Him,

Jesus Christ, who died for me?

Refrain

Face to face shall I behold Him,

Far beyond the starry sky;

Face to face in all His glory

I shall see Him by and by!

Only faintly now I see Him,

With the darkening veil between,

But a blessed day is coming,

When His glory shall be seen.

Refrain

Face to face shall I behold Him,

Far beyond the starry sky;

Face to face in all His glory

I shall see Him by and by!

What rejoicing in His presence,

When are banished grief and pain;

When the crooked ways are straightened,

And the dark things shall be plain!

Refrain

Face to face shall I behold Him,

Far beyond the starry sky;

Face to face in all His glory

I shall see Him by and by!

Face to face! oh, blissful moment!

Face to face to see and know;

Face to face with my Redeemer,

Jesus Christ, who loves me so.

Refrain

Face to face shall I behold Him,

Far beyond the starry sky;

Face to face in all His glory

I shall see Him by and by!

     Carrie Ellis Breck was a devout Presbyterian who wrote verse for religious periodicals. Carrie’s family moved from Vermont to Vineland, New Jersey, and she spent most of her life in southern New Jersey. She married Frank Breck, and they moved to Oregon between 1910 and 1920. A devout Christian, she was devoted to her husband and five daughters. She had no sense of pitch, and could not carry a tune, but she had the gift of poetic rhythm, and wrote more than 2,000 poems. She was not particularly robust in health, and had to take frequent rests while doing chores. At such times, she would sit in her favorite rocking chair, take up a notebook, and write poetry, often with a baby on her knee, or playing at her feet.. She was born in Vermont in 1855 and died in Portland, Oregon, in 1934.

     Grant Colfax Tullar was a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church and a public evangelist. He wrote the tune after supper one evening, beginning with the words, "All for me the Savior suffered, All for me He bled and died..." In his mail the next morning he received several poems from Mrs. Breck. One of them, "Face to Face," was in the exact meter of the tune he had just written the night before. So he set her words to his music, and they have been together ever since.