Words: , in Gos­pel Bells, compiled by Rankin, , Otis Presb­rey (Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois: The West­ern Sun­day School Pub­lish­ing Co., 1880).

Written…as a Christian good-bye, it was called forth by no per­son or oc­ca­sion, but was de­lib­er­ate­ly com­posed as a Christ­ian hymn on the ba­sis of the ety­mol­o­gy of “good-bye,” which is “God be with you.” The first stan­za was writ­ten and sent to two com­pos­ers—one of un­u­su­al note, the other whol­ly un­known and not tho­rough­ly ed­u­cat­ed in mu­sic. I se­lect­ed the com­po­si­tion of the lat­ter, sub­mit­ted it to J. W. Bischoff—the mu­sic­al di­rect­or of a lit­tle book we were pre­par­ing—who ap­proved of it, but made some cri­ti­cisms, which were adopt­ed. It was sung for the first time one ev­en­ing in the First Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church in Wash­ing­ton, of which I was then the pas­tor and Mr. Bis­choff the org­an­ist. I at­trib­ut­ed its pop­u­lar­i­ty in no lit­tle part to the mu­sic to which it was set. It was a wed­ding of words and mu­sic, at which it was my func­tion to pre­side; but Mr. To­mer should have his full share of the fam­i­ly hon­or.

Music: God Be with You, , 1882; at the time, Tom­er was mu­sic di­rect­or at the Grace Meth­od­ist Epis­co­pal Church in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Al­ter­nate tune:

• Randolph, , 1906