Many hymns were written in response to the spiritual trial of sickness, death and persecution. According to [1] http://www.semicolonblog.com/?p=6004, ”Jesus, I Am Resting” was  China missionary Hudson Taylor’s favorite, and it gave him comfort in troubled times.

“‘Having returned to England in ill health, he was brought to the very doors of death by the terrible news of the disruption of the work and the murder of hundreds of missionaries, as well as hundreds of native Christians, in connection with the Boxer uprising of 1900. Anguish of heart was killing him. Yet he believed that this baptism of blood would, under God, work out to the furtherance of the gospel.’

As J. Hudson Taylor was taking comfort in the words of Ms. Pigott’s hymn, Jean Sophia Pigott’s brother, Thomas Wellesley Pigott, a missionary in China, was martyred during the Boxer Rebellion.”

Today, though almost forgotten, this hymn still comforts God’s people in their battle against Satan in life’s grace-filled journey in Christ.