Introduction

Words: Will­iam O. Cush­ing, 1896.

Music: Ira D. San­key (🔊 pdf nwc).

One night dur­ing the Box­er re­volt [1899–1901], when the Chi­nese had set fire to ma­ny build­ings and it seemed as though all the mis­sion­ar­ies and na­tive Chris­tians in a be­sieged city would be de­stroyed, the child­ren be­long­ing to the Jun­ior Chris­tian En­dea­vor So­ci­e­ty held a meet­ing in a cha­pel. While the crack­ling of the flames, the sharp re­port of Chinese guns, and the cries of men and wo­men run­ning to and fro were rend­ing the air, these lit­tle dis­ci­ples of Je­sus were sing­ing: There’ll be no dark val­ley when Je­sus Comes.

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A mis­sion­ary, work­ing in the slums of a ci­ty in Ire­land, writes me as fol­lows: I feel con­strained to thank you from the bot­tom of my heart for all the great bless­ings I have re­ceived from sing­ing your songs. I am a work­er in the slums of—and I find that your songs reach the hearts of fall­en men and wo­men be­fore an­y­thing else.

I have just re­turned home from our meet­ing, and the mes­sage I sang to-night was your sweet song, There’ll be no dark val­ley when Je­sus comes. I want to thank you in par­ti­cu­lar for this song, be­cause it pre­sents death to us in such a glo­ri­ous way. The old Welsh peo­ple used to speak and sing of death as some­thing ve­ry fear­ful—a dark ri­ver, great waves, and so on—and I re­mem­ber my dear mo­ther sing­ing all the Welsh hymns re­ferr­ing to death, un­til I shud­dered.

But, praise the Lord, I know now that it is dif­fer­ent. Your lit­tle song has con­firmed this be­lief in me not on­ly, but in ma­ny, ma­ny more souls.

Sankey, pp. 284–85