John H. Sammis was the writer of the Christian hymn "Trust and Obey" with Towner in 1887. Sammis also wrote the hymn "He's a Friend of Mine". Sammis was born in 1846, in Brooklyn, New York and died in 1919 in Los Angeles, California. He was a businessman who became a Presbyterian minister. He taught at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Sammis wrote over 100 hymns. Most of them can be categorized as "songs of trust" and "songs of obedience". They were compiled by (a founder of Bible Institute of Los Angeles) and R. A. Torrey in 1918.