Introduction



Words: Ci­vil­la D. Mar­tin, 1904. First ap­peared in Songs of Re­demp­tion and Praise, by John A. Da­vis, 1905.

This song is cred­it­ed for trans­form­ing the life of James Cash Pen­ney, foun­der of the Am­eri­can de­part­ment store chain J. C. Pen­ney. He heard it one morn­ing in the cha­pel of the Kel­logg Sa­ni­ta­ri­um in Bat­tle Creek, Mi­chi­gan, where he had been hos­pi­tal­ized with a se­vere case of shin­gles, as well as ex­haus­tion and de­pres­sion.

Music: W. Still­man Mar­tin (🔊 pdf nwc).

I was con­fined to a sick bed in a Bi­ble school in Les­ter­shire [now John­son Ci­ty], New York. My hus­band was spend­ing se­ver­al weeks at the school, mak­ing a song­book for the pre­si­dent of the school. God Will Take Care of You was writ­ten one Sun­day af­ter­noon while my hus­band went to a preach­ing ap­point­ment.

When he re­turned I gave the words to him. He im­me­di­ate­ly sat down to his lit­tle Bil­horn or­gan and wrote the mu­sic. That ev­en­ing he and two of the teach­ers sang the com­plet­ed song. It was then print­ed in the song­book he was com­pil­ing for the school.

Civilla Martin

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A blind man was seen cross­ing the street at a dan­ger­ous place in the Bronx, New York Ci­ty. A friend nearby overheard him singing softly, God will take care of you, and asked, Why are you sing­ing that hymn?

He re­plied: Be­cause I must cross this dan­ger­ous street, and may­be one of the ma­ny wa­gons might strike me and I might get killed. But the thought came to me that, ev­en if it did oc­cur, my soul would go straight to God. And if he led me across all right, it would be just ano­ther evi­dence of his care of me. So I could not help sing­ing to my­self, God will take care of you. Hal­le­lu­jah!

A lit­tle Sun­day school girl once told her mo­ther she was ne­ver afraid to pass through a cer­tain dark hall­way lead­ing to their home, be­cause, she ex­plained, I simp­ly sing, God will take care of you, and I always come through safely.

This hymn was sung at each ses­sion of the State Chris­tian En­dea­vor Con­ven­tion, Al­too­na, Penn­syl­van­ia, in 1910. At the close of one of the ses­sions a man, touched by the song, in­quired af­ter sal­va­tion.

A lit­tle lat­er some de­le­gates, while sing­ing this song at their ho­tel, no­ticed se­ver­al men at the door of a near­by bar­room at­tract­ed by the sing­ing. One had a glass of beer in his hand, which he qui­et­ly poured in­to the gut­ter lead­ing to the street be­fore the strains of the song were fin­ished.

Price p. 16