Bible Songs — Judgment and Second Advent

"Hold Fast till I Come."

Sweet promise is giv'n to all who believe,—

No. 1339
Tune "HOLD FAST TILL I COME."
Words F. E. B.
Music F. E. Belden.
Key G major
Singing key F major
Time 3/4
3 stanzas

Words

Sweet promise is giv'n to all who believe,—"Behold I come quickly, mine own to receive;Hold fast till I come; the danger is great;Sleep not as do others; be watchful, and wait."

We'll "watch unto prayer" with lamps burning bright;He comes to all others a "thief in the night."We know he is near, but know not the day,—As spring shows that summer is not far away.

Yes! this is our hope, 'tis built on His word,—The glorious appearing of Jesus, our Lord;Of promises all, it stands as the sum:"Behold I come quickly, hold fast till I come."

REFRAIN

"Hold fast till I come;" sweet promise of heav'n,—"The kingdom restored, to you shall be giv'n."

D. S.—"Come, enter my joy, sit down on my throne;Bright crowns are in waiting; hold fast till I come."

About this hymn

As printed As printed on p. 549 (PDF 550), under the last system of hymn 1338 («THE THREE MESSAGES.—Concluded.»): hymn number «1339» (large, left), title «"Hold Fast till I Come."» centred between quotation marks (condensed capitals and small capitals: «H», «F», «I», «C» full capitals); under it the epigraph in one line of roman, «"Behold, I come quickly; hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown."—Rev. 3 : 11.» (old-style figures); on the next line «F. E. B.» at the left (words) and «F. E. BELDEN.» at the right (music). No meter, no tune name other than the title, no reference line. All three stanzas are interlinear, numbered «1.»–«3.», between the staves of systems 1–3 (up to «Fine.»); in stanza 2 the words «lamps burn-ing bright» are set in a condensed bold face, unlike the rest of the line. «REFRAIN.» (bold capitals) stands after «Fine.» in system 3; the refrain words are printed once, on the second lyric row of system 3 and the single row of system 4. Under the bass staff of systems 2–3, in italics, the words sung after the «D. S.» (from the segno to «Fine.»): «D. S.—"Come, en - ter my joy, sit down on my throne; Bright / crowns are in wait - ing; hold fast till I come."». At the foot, centred: «Copyrighted 1886 by F. E. Belden.». Each printed line of words carries parts of several verse lines; they are given here one verse line per line (joined across the system breaks: «mine / own to receive», «"Be- / hold I come quickly», «Sleep / not as do others», «As / spring shows», «Bright / crowns» and their parallels). The words divided under the notes are joined here («prom-ise», «be-lieve», «Be-hold», «quick-ly», «re-ceive», «un-to», «burn-ing», «oth-ers», «glo-rious», «ap-pear-ing», «Je-sus», «prom-is-es», «dan-ger», «watch-ful», «a-way», «en-ter», «wait-ing», «king-dom», «re-stored») — the divisions are in `lyrics_syllables.txt`; «believe» and «summer» are printed unbroken under two notes. The print sets a thin space before «; : !» («great ;», «sum :», «Yes !»); it is closed up here; quotation marks and apostrophes are written straight («giv'n», «'tis», «heav'n»). Spelling, capitals and punctuation are the print's.