Musical Notes

Hello OCBC family!

Last Sunday, for our invitation song, we sang the lovely hymn called “Trusting Jesus” and I thought it would be good to share with you the background of it.  The author of this hymn was a man named Edgar P. Stites (1876).  He was a direct descendent of John Howland, one of the Mayflower’s passengers.  We do not know too much about Stites, only that he was active in the Civil War, that he was later a riverboat pilot and then a missionary to the frontier churches in South Dakota.

He wrote this poem which appeared in a newspaper, a newspaper that was handed to D. L. Moody.  He read those lyrics and passed it to his music leader, Ira D. Sankey, thus he can put music to them.  Then, this hymn became popular in Moody’s revival meetings.
There is a powerful testimony of how God used this hymn to save the soul of a woman. This is the story: About two years ago, writes a minister, “I visited a woman who was suffering from an incurable disease; but as great as was her agony of body, her distress of mind was greater still. One day she said: ‘The future is so dark, I dare not look forward at all.’

“To my question, ‘Can’t you trust yourself in God’s hands?’ She replied: ‘No, I can’t leave myself there.’

“I repeated the hymn, ‘Simply trusting every day,’ and especially dwelt on the refrain, Trusting as the moments fly, trusting as the days go by. Ah, she said, I can trust him this moment; is it like that? I then sang the hymn to her, and the change that came over her was wonderful. She never lost this trust, and she had the page in her hymn-book turned down, that she might have the hymn read to her. After many months of intense suffering she passed away, simply trusting, to the land where there shall be no more pain.”

Simply trusting every day,
Trusting through a stormy way;
Even when my faith is small,
Trusting Jesus, that is all.

Refrain
Trusting as the moments fly,
Trusting as the days go by;
Trusting Him whate’er befall,
Trusting Jesus, that is all.

Brightly does His Spirit shine
Into this poor heart of mine;
While He leads I cannot fall;
Trusting Jesus, that is all.

Singing if my way is clear,
Praying if the path be drear;
If in danger for Him call;
Trusting Jesus, that is all.

Trusting Him while life shall last,
Trusting Him till earth be past;
Till within the jasper wall,
Trusting Jesus, that is all.

In His service,
Israel

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