Lyrics
O safe to the Rock that is higher than I,
My soul in its conflicts and sorrows would fly.
So sinful, so weary, Thine, Thine would I be.
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I'm hiding in Thee.
Hiding in Thee, hiding in Thee,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I'm hiding in Thee.
In the calm of the noontide, in sorrow's lone hour;
In times when temptation casts o'er me its power,
In the tempests of life, on its wide, heaving sea,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I'm hiding in Thee.
How oft in the conflict, when pressed by the foe,
I've fled to my Refuge and breathed out my woe.
How often, when trials like sea billows roll,
I've hidden in Thee, O Thou Rock of my soul.
Public domain hymn text and tune (text 1876, tune 1877). Words by William O. Cushing; music by Ira D. Sankey.
The Story Behind the Hymn
William Orcutt Cushing wrote "Hiding in Thee" in 1876 while living in Moravia, New York, during a period he later described only in general terms as the product of "many tears, heart-conflicts, and soul-yearnings unknown to anyone else." By that point in his life, Cushing had already endured the loss of his wife, followed by a paralysis of his vocal cords that permanently ended his own ability to preach or sing — a devastating blow for a man who had trained for ministry. Rather than stepping back from church work entirely, Cushing turned his full attention to writing hymn texts, eventually producing more than 300 of them.
Ira D. Sankey, D. L. Moody's song leader, wrote to Cushing at some point asking for new material: "Send me something new to help me in my gospel work." Cushing's reply was the text of this hymn. Sankey composed the tune, and the finished song first appeared in Welcome Tidings, a collection he compiled in 1877 with Robert Lowry and William H. Doane.
The hymn's central image, a rock offering refuge from a stormy sea, draws on Psalm 61's plea to be led "to the rock that is higher than I" — language that, coming from a man who had lost both his wife and his voice, reads less as poetic convention than as a fairly direct description of where Cushing had, in fact, found himself needing to hide.
Cushing died in 1902, having spent the back half of his life writing hymns he could no longer sing aloud himself — among them this one, still sung today by congregations with no voice trouble of their own.
