Scripture Verse

Joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5

Introduction

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Fanny Crosby (1820–1915)

Words: Fan­ny Cros­by, 1886. Pub­lished in Gos­pel Hymns No. 5, ed­it­ed by Ira San­key, James Mc­Gra­na­han & George C. Steb­bins (New York; Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois and Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio: John Church and Big­low & Main, 1887), num­ber 8.

Music: Cook Is­lands Ira D. San­key (🔊 pdf nwc).

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Ira D. Sankey (1840–1908)

Origin of the Song

During the sum­mer of 1886, Fan­ny Cros­by was my guest at North­field [Mas­sa­chu­setts]. One day I com­posed this tune and said to her:

Why not write a po­em for this tune to-night? The spir­it of po­et­ry did not seem to be up­on her, and she an­swered:

No, I can­not do it at pre­sent. The fol­low­ing day we went for a drive, and ex­pect­ed her to go with us, but to our as­tonish­ment, she asked to be ex­cused, say­ing that she had some­thing she wished to do.

After we had gone, a num­ber of stu­dents came in and had a plea­sant chat with Fan­ny Cros­by, and af­ter they had gone she sat down at the pi­ano and played my tune ov­er, and the words of the hymn came to her as they now stand. Upon our re­turn she hast­ened to meet us, and re­cit­ed the vers­es to me.

Fanny Cros­by spent eight sum­mers with us at North­field, and on a re­cent vis­it here she told me that some of her hap­pi­est days were those at North­field, and, re­fer­ring to this hymn, she said she knew that she had been per­mit­ted to do a lit­tle good there. She al­so told me that she knew that ma­ny a poor soul had been com­fort­ed by this sim­ple hymn.

Sankey, pp. 333–34

Lyrics

O child of God, wait pa­tient­ly
When dark thy path may be,
And let thy faith lean trust­ing­ly
On Him who cares for Thee;
And though the clouds hang drear­ily
Upon the brow of night,
Yet in the morn­ing joy will come,
And fill thy soul with light.

O child of God, He lov­eth thee,
And thou art all His own;
With gen­tle hand He lead­eth thee,
Thou dost not walk alone;
And though thou watch­est wear­ily
The long and stor­my night,
Yet in the morn­ing joy will come,
And fill thy soul with light.

O child of God, how peace­ful­ly
He calms thy fears to rest,
And draws thee up­ward ten­der­ly,
Where dwell the pure and blest;
And He who bend­eth si­lent­ly
Above the gloom of night,
Will take thee home where end­less joy
Shall fill thy soul with light.