Introduction

Words & Mu­sic: Ira D. San­key, 1888 (🔊 pdf nwc). Some hymn­als give the au­thor as Ri­an A. Dykes, San­key’s pseu­do­nym.

During one of my trips to Great Bri­tain, on The Ci­ty of Rome, a storm raged on the sea. The wind was howl­ing through the rig­ging, and waves like mount­ains of foam were break­ing ov­er the bow of the ves­sel.

A great fear had fall­en up­on the pas­sen­gers. When the storm was at its worst we all thought that we might soon go to the bot­tom of the sea.

The con­vic­tion came to me that the Lord would be with us in the try­ing hour, and, sit­ting down in the read­ing room, I com­posed this hymn. Be­fore reach­ing Eng­land the tune had formed it­self in my mind, and on ar­riv­ing in Lon­don I wrote it out and had it pub­lished in “Sac­red Songs and So­los.”

It has been much em­ployed in Eng­land in con­nec­tion with ser­mons on the se­cond com­ing of Christ, and was fre­quent­ly used by Mr. Moody.

Sankey, pp. 265–66