God Will Take Care Of You: A Song History
Civilla Durfee Martin (1866–1948) wrote the words of “God Will Take Care Of You,” and her husband, Walter Stillman Martin (1862–1935), set them to music in the summer of 1904 at the Practical Bible Training School in Lestershire, New York, where evangelist John A. Davis had asked the couple to help compile a hymnal for the school.[1] Civilla told the story of its writing more than once, and her versions differ in detail, though the basic facts agree.[1] In a 1941 interview she recalled being ill in bed at the school while Walter was away at a Sunday preaching engagement, writing the verses that afternoon, and hearing him set them on his small Bilhorn organ when he returned; Walter and two teachers performed the finished song that same night.[1][2] In that interview she also cautioned that some earlier retellings were “really fantastic.”[1] An earlier account, printed in The Mennonite in 1923, credits the couple’s young son with the remark that inspired the text.[1]
Ford Madox Brown, The Convalescent (A Portrait of the Artist's Wife), pastel, 1872. Shown because Civilla Martin wrote the words while ill in bed; it has no connection to the hymn.
The hymn was first printed in Songs of Redemption and Praise (Chicago: Bilhorn, 1905), the hymnal the Martins helped Davis assemble for the school, and it carried a dedication to Davis’s wife.[1] The 1923 account credits the evangelists Torrey and Alexander with popularizing it early on, and by 1910 an extra stanza was appearing in Alexander’s Gospel Songs No. 2.[1] Hymnary.org now counts it in 479 hymnals, among them The United Methodist Hymnal and the Baptist Hymnal of 2008.[3] On record, the Discography of American Historical Recordings lists versions from 1924 onward, the first by J. Foster Barnes for Victor.[4] Soprano Marion Talley recorded it for Victor’s Red Seal label in 1927.[5]
Larry Conger includes it in Hymns For Chromatic Mountain Dulcimer, a book of sixteen gospel hymns arranged for the chromatic mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning, published by Fingers Of Steel.[6]
Sources
- Hymnology Archive: "God Will Take Care of You".
- Discipleship Ministries: "History of Hymns: 'God Will Take Care of You'".
- Hymnary.org: "Be not dismayed whate'er betide".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "W. Stillman Martin".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor 1248 (10-in. double-faced Red Seal)".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Hymns For Chromatic Mountain Dulcimer".
- Image: Ford Madox Brown, The Convalescent (A Portrait of the Artist's Wife), pastel, 1872. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.