Scripture Verse

Introduction

Anecdote

During a cam­paign in To­ron­to, Ca­na­da, a young con­vert with whom I was deal­ing ex­pressed the fear that he would not be able to hold out.

A day or two lat­er in a let­ter to Miss Ada Hab­ers­hon, of Lon­don, I men­tioned the need for a song which would give def­in­ite as­sur­ance of suc­cess in the Chris­tian life.

The weeks passed and a cou­ple of months lat­er dur­ing a great cam­paign in Phi­la­del­phia, U.S.A., I re­ceived a batch of sev­en new songs writ­ten by Miss Hab­er­shon.

As Dr. Tor­rey preached his ser­mon one af­ter­noon (in­stead of list­en­ing!) I oc­cu­pied the time in set­ting the sev­en lyr­ics to mu­sic. One of these was He will hold me fast.

The same ev­en­ing it was in­tro­duced by Chas. M. Al­ex­an­der to an au­die­nce of 4,000 pe­ople. Its suc­cess was im­me­di­ate, and it has con­tin­ued to be a great fav­our­ite. It has been trans­lat­ed in­to ma­ny lan­guag­es.

Robert Harkness