This is a song which emphasizes the fact that there is no variableness with the God who lives in heaven is "Hold to God's Unchanging Hand". The text was written by Mary Jane (Jennie) Bain Wilson, born on a farm at Cleveland, IN, near South Whitley, in, 1856 (some sources say 1857), to Robert and Mary Frances Russell Wilson.
Her father died in her infancy. When she was about four years old, an attack of spinal trouble resulted in her being rendered an invalid, confined to a wheel-chair and bed. Not being able to attend school, she studied at home, read much, and received some musical instruction.
A natural love for music and poetry early in life led her to verse writing. Her earliest poems appeared in a local paper. Her first hymn was entitled "All the Way," and, not knowing of its publication, she was pleasantly surprised when it was found in new songbooks purchased by a Sunday School in her neighborhood.
In 1881, she was baptized by being carried on a chair into a beautiful, tree shaded stream, and, in her words, "it gave me much joy to thus confess my dear Savior."
Later, through the influence of a minister named Jacob D. Coverstone, Miss Wilson sent hymns to a publication in Dayton, OH. These attracted the attention of composers such as William J. Kirkpatrick and Edmund S. Lorenz, by whom she was invited to write hymns to be set to music. A prolific poet, she produced about 2,200 poems and hymn texts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Yet, over the course of her life she never interjected sadness from her condition in her works. One exception is a poem entitled, "A Memory Picture," which refers to scenery near the old home, and alludes to memories of the time when she could walk.
Her mother died in 1902. The mother's grave is marked by a monument bearing the following verse written by the invalid daughter to whom she had given years of devoted care, reading, "After her long life journey cometh death's dreamless sleep; Over her rest may angels ever a fond watch keep."
Even though wheelchair bound, she enjoyed attending Bible conferences at nearby Winona Lake, IN, and other locations. Sometime in 1904, which is probably the year that she penned it, Miss Wilson sent "Hold to God's Unchanging Hand" to Franklin Lycurgus Eiland (1860-1909). Eiland's tune (Unchanging Hand) was conceived in 1905, when he was sitting under a tree in the backyard of the Palo Pinto County, TX, log cabin home of fellow hymn writer James Washington Gaines (1881-1937). When Eiland died, his gravestone contained the carved figure of a hand that appears to be reaching downward, symbolizing God's unchanging hand.
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