The Christian's”Good-Night"

Words by Sarah Doudney Music by Ira D. Sankey

"Sleep on, beloved, sleep, and take thy rest;
Lay down thy head upon thy Saviour's breast.”

Sung at the funeral of Captain S. S. Brown. An unusual story was also made public thereby. ”In the last hours of the turf king's life,” one of the daily papers says, ”he had an interval in which his mind was clear. He called his daughter-in-law and asked if she would take on herself the task of seeing that ' The Christian's Good-night' was sung at his funeral; and he told her, in a disjointed way, of a dream from which he had just awakened. He had thought himself dead, and there were four ministers taking part, in his funeral. He named the ministers and said that one of them had broken down while making an address, and that another, naming this minister also, had taken up the address. Captain Brown said that he awoke as all were singing ' The Christian's Goodnight, ' and that he had joined with them in the singing. The dying man smiled faintly at the picture he drew, but begged his daughter-in-law to remember her promise."

The words of this hymn were occasioned by the death of a friend. They were handed to me at Bristol, England. I wrote the music soon afterward, and sang it at the funeral of Charles H. Spurgeon, the great London preacher. It has since become very useful on two continents as a funeral hymn.