| My Jesus I Love Thee | |
|---|---|
| by attr. William Ralph Featherston | |
 | |
| Genre | Hymn |
| Written | 1872 |
| Based on | John21:15 |
| Meter | 11.11.11.11 |
| Melody | "Gordon" by Adoniram Judson Gordon |
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.Contents
My Jesus I Love Thee appeared twice in 1862, first in The Christian Pioneer (February, six verses) edited by Joseph Foulkes Winks, then in October in The Primitive Methodist Magazine edited by William Antliff - who published the same version the following two years in works for children, one in the Primitive Methodist Juvenile Magazine , 1863, and one in the Primitive Methodists' Sabbath School Hymns, [1] 1864. (October, four verses). This version is, save for a two-word edit in The London Hymn Book, [2] the version we sing today. All five appearances, including three by Antliff, bear no attribution, nor does the 1872 setting by Adoniram Judson (A.J.) Gordon. Several lines and phrases of this poem are borrowed nearly verbatim from the hymn O Jesus my Savior, I know though art mine by Kentucky camp meeting evangelist Caleb Jarvis Taylor, published in 1804; the camp meeting is the connection with England's Primitive Methodists, of which William Antliff was a leading figure at the time this hymn emerged.
Though the poem is said to have been written by William Ralph Featherston in 1864 when he was alleged to have been 16 years old, [3] [4] the hymn had already appeared two years earlier, and his birth date is actually three years later (1849) than the legend has it - he would have been 12 years old. [5] No evidence has ever been provided of his authorship, and though the legend appears in the UK version of Ira D. Sankey's 1906 memoir My Life and Sacred Songs [6] (with factual errors, including a date when the supposed writer would turn nine), the attribution is entirely absent from the US version published simultaneously in 1906 [7] and in a longer edition a year later in 1907 [8] of My life and the story of the gospel hymns and of sacred songs and solos, [9] in which his attribution is Anonymous.
This hymn is used as the basis for the song Imandra by Ananias Davisson in the Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony in 1820, reprinted in Southern Harmony in 1835. [10] [11] There are other similarities between this poem and camp-meeting songs published in the 1820s onward. [12] [13] [14]
In 1872 Adoniram Judson Gordon wrote a new setting to this hymn, published in The Vestry Hymn and Tune Book [15] (1872). This tune was posthumously named GORDON. A.J. Gordon is also the founder of Gordon College and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
