The other day I was introduced to this challenging and encouraging hymn which was written by Horatio Richmond Palmer in 1868.
Mr. Palmer said, ”This song was an inspiration. I was at work on the dry subject
of ' Theory' when the complete idea flashed upon me, and I laid aside the
theoretical work and hurriedly penned both words and music as fast as I could
write them. I submitted them to the criticism of a friend afterward, and some
changes were made in the third stanza, but the first two are exactly as they
came to me. The music was first written in A flat; but I soon saw that B flat
was better, and for many years it has appeared in that key. I am reverently
thankful it has been a power for good."
A friend contributes this incident:
”Twenty years ago, when the State prison at Sing Sing, New York, had women as
well as men within its walls, a lady used to visit the women's department. Every
Sunday afternoon the inmates were permitted to come out and sit in the corridor
to hear her talk, and to sing hymns with her. One day some of the women rebelled
against an order of the matron, and a terrible scene followed. Screams, threats,
ribaldry and profanity filled the air. It was said, by those who knew, that an
uprising among the women prisoners was worse and more difficult to quell than
one among the men. The matron hastily sent to the men's department for help.
Suddenly a voice rose clear and strong above the tumult, singing a favourite song
of the prisoners,
'Yield not to temptation,
For yielding is sin;
Each victory will help you
Some other to win.
Fight manfully onward,
Dark passions subdue;
Look ever to Jesus,
He'll carry you through.'
There was a lull; then one
after another joined in the sacred song; and presently, with one accord, all
formed into line and marched quietly to their cells."
A minister who at the time was
laboring there, writes me that when Dr. Somerville, of Scotland, and Mr. Varley,
of England, were in New Zealand, in the 1870’s, in connection with Young Men's
Christian Association work, many young men found strength for life's temptations
in the first lines of this hymn, which was sung at every meeting for
months.
“Some twenty-four years
ago, ”writes James A. Watson, of Blackburn, England,” the Presbyterian church of
England was preparing to issue a new book of praise, ' The Church Praise,' now
in use. I was asked to send in a suitable list of hymns for the young. Among the
number I sent ' Yield not to temptation,' but to my regret, when I got a draft
copy of the proposed hymn-book, that hymn was not in it. Three or four Sundays
afterward I was requested by the teacher of the infant class in the St. George's
School, where I have been superintendent for over forty years, to visit a dying
boy. I found him unconscious. All that his widowed mother could tell me about
him was that he had kept saying: 'He'll carry me through.' When I asked her if
she knew what he meant, she told me that she did not. She did not attend church
or school. I told her that it was the chorus of a hymn, and pointed out how the
good Shepherd was carrying her little boy through the valley; how he was
gathering her lamb in his loving arms. I also told her that the Saviour would
carry her through her trouble, would comfort, strengthen and keep her, and at
last bring her to the happy land where death-divided ones will meet to part no
more. I was so much impressed by the incident that I wrote to the convener of
the hymn-book committee, and pleaded for the insertion of the hymn in the new
book. The committee put it in, and for twenty-three years the young people of
our Presbyterian church have been able to sing it when wanted, all through the
comfort it had been to a little dying boy, the only son of a widow, on a back
street of Blackburn."
Found here: http://breadsite.org/hymnstories/yieldnottotemptation.htm
Rest of the hymn:
- Refrain:
Ask the Saviour to help you,
Comfort, strengthen, and keep you;
He is willing to aid you,
He will carry you through.
- Shun evil companions, bad language disdain,
God’s name hold in reverence, nor take it in vain;
Be thoughtful and earnest, kindhearted and true;
Look ever to Jesus, He’ll carry you through.
- To him that o’ercometh, God giveth a crown,
Through faith we will conquer, though often cast down;
He who is our Saviour, our strength will renew;
Look ever to Jesus, He’ll carry you through.
