Scripture Verse

Introduction

Origin of the Hymn

Fifteen years af­ter this hymn was writ­ten Miss Ha­ver­gal said about it: “Yes, ‘I gave My life for thee’ is mine, and per­haps it will in­ter­est you to hear how near­ly it went into the fire ins­tead of near­ly all ov­er the world.

“It was, I think, the ve­ry first thing I wrote which could be called a hymn—writ­ten when I was a young girl, in 1859. I did not half real­ize what I was writ­ing about. I was fol­low­ing ve­ry far off, al­ways doubt­ing and fear­ing. I think I had come to Je­sus with a trem­bling faith, but it was a com­ing ‘in the press’ and be­hind, ne­ver see­ing His face or feel­ing sure that He loved me.

“I scrib­bled these words in a few min­utes on the back of a cir­cu­lar, and then read them over and thought, ‘Well, this is not po­et­ry, any­how; I won’t trou­ble to write this out.’ I reached out my hand to put it in the fire, when a sud­den imp­ulse made me draw it back, and I put it, crum­pled and singed, in my pock­et.

Soon af­ter I went to see a dear old wo­man in the alms­house. She be­gan talk­ing to me, as she al­ways did, about her dear Sav­iour, and I thought I would see if she, a sim­ple old woman, would care for these vers­es, which I felt sure no­bo­dy else would ev­en care to read. I read them to her, and she was so de­light­ed with them that I co­pied them out and kept them. And now the Mas­ter has sent them out in all di­rec­tions, and I have heard of their be­ing a real bless­ing to ma­ny.

Miss Hav­er­gal showed the hymn some time af­ter­ward to her fa­ther, and he wrote a me­lo­dy es­pe­cial­ly for it. But it is the tune which Mr. Bliss com­posed for it that be­came po­pu­lar in Am­eri­ca.

Sankey, pp. 160–61