Introduction

Words: Ed­gar P. Stites, 1876. The lyr­ics first ap­peared as a po­em in a news­pa­per. They were giv­en to Ira San­key’s part­ner Dwight Moody, who asked San­key to write mu­sic for them.

Music: Pi­nel­las Ira D. San­key (🔊 pdf nwc).

About two years ago, writes a min­is­ter, “I vis­it­ed a wo­man who was suf­fer­ing from an in­cu­ra­ble dis­ease; but great as was her ago­ny of bo­dy, her dis­tress of mind was great­er still. One day she said: ‘The fu­ture is so dark, I dare not look for­ward at all.’

“To my question, ‘Can’t you trust your­self in God’s hands?’ She re­plied: ‘No, I can’t leave my­self there.’

I re­peated the hymn, Sim­ply trust­ing ev­ery day, and es­pe­cial­ly dwelt on the re­frain, Trust­ing as the mo­ments fly, trust­ing as the days go by. Ah, she said, I can trust him this mo­ment; is it like that?

I then sang the hymn to her, and the change that came over her was won­der­ful. She ne­ver lost this trust, and she had the page in her hymn book turned down, that she might have the hymn read to her. Af­ter ma­ny months of in­tense suf­fer­ing she passed away, sim­ply trust­ing, to the land where there shall be no more pain.

Sankey, p. 291