My Jesus I Love Thee

My Jesus, I Love Thee

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
For Thee all the follies of sin I resign.
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

I love Thee because Thou has first loved me,
And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree.
I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;
I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

William Ralph Featherston, 1864

My Jesus I Love Thee is a poem written by William Ralph Featherston around 1864. Featherston is said to have been either 12 or 16 years old when he wrote the poem.[1] In 1876 Adoniram Gordon added music to it. Featherston died at the age of 27, well before his poem had become a well-known inspirational hymn. The poem is believed to have been Featherston's only publicly published work.

Inspiration

According to Tim Challies,[1]

Not much is known about Featherston, except that he attended a Methodist church in Montreal, that he was young when he wrote the poem (12 or 16 years old), and that he died at just 27 years of age. One story about how the poem became public is that Featherston mailed it to his aunt in Los Angeles who, upon reading it, quickly sought its publication... It wasn’t until several years after Featherston’s death that Adoniram Judson Gordon (founder of Gordon College and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) added a melody and published it in his book of hymns, thus forever transforming this poem to a song.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 March 10, 2013 (2013-03-10). "Hymn Stories: My Jesus I Love Thee | Challies Dot Com". Challies.com. Retrieved 2013-10-17.

Additional Sources