O the deep, deep love of Jesus

Almost a 20th-c hymn but with a classic feel to it, this has been an evangelical favourite since 1911, though as yet appearing in relatively few hymnals. In that year G Campbell Morgan included these 3 stzs in The Song Companion to the Scriptures, selecting them from Samuel T Francis’ ‘Love of Jesus’ which came in Whence, Whither and other poems in 1898. The author was by then living at Kennington, where Surrey met S London, and had already published several hymns. The pre-eminence of this one is evidenced by the title given to his posthumously collected works in 1926, O the deep, deep love of Jesus, and Other Poems. The former pop-singer Helen Shapiro, converted from Judaism in 1987, included part of this hymn in her Gospel Outreach events as ‘O the deep, deep love of Jeshua’ – with an added stanza in Hebrew.

The tune EBENEZER is an early composition by Thomas J Williams, named after Ebenezer Chapel in Ynysmeudwy (Rhos), Pontardawe, Glam, where he belonged—which in turn refers to 1 Sam 7:12. Composed in 1896, it appeared in the October 1897 issue of Yr Athraw (‘The Teacher’), in anthem form 2 years later, and around the same time (1899–1901) in The Baptist Book of Praise, where it was named ASSURANCE to avoid duplicating the name of a different tune in that book. (Beware also confusion with the newer 53 in this book.) The Welsh revival of 1904–05 brought it into further prominence, further confirmed by EH which set it to Who is this with garments gory, but did not name the composer. The book’s music editor Vaughan Williams counted it among the world’s 100 finest tunes; Alan Luff insists that ‘it must not be sung too fast’. Although it is still sometimes indexed under TON Y BOTEL (‘the bottle tune’) the story about its discovery in a bottle on the Welsh coast, possibly suggested by the ‘sea’ imagery of these words, is, however, fictional. Linda Mawson’s tune PRAISE! (926) is a suggested alternative.

b Cheshunt, Herts 1834, d Worthing, Sussex 1925. Moving in his early years to Hull, S Yorks, he received basic education from his aunt and grandmother. He was a choirboy at the parish church and in his youth wrote verse. Later he joined the (Plymouth) Brethren and became a businessman and merchant in London. He assisted Ira Sankey and sometimes even deputised for him during the Moody and Sankey missions in Britain, 1873–75, and was himself in much demand as an effective speaker indoors and out, travelling widely in the UK and beyond. His hymns appeared in several periodicals including The Life of Faith, and in 1873 in the Enlarged London Hymn Book. He also wrote Gems from the Revised Version, with Poems (1891) and Whence-Whither and Other Poems ( 1898). He died at the Groombridge Nursing Home at the age of 91. His collected verse was issued posthumously in 1926 as O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus, and Other Poems, and his story is told in H Pickering’s Chief Men among the Brethren (1931). Christian Worship (1976) includes 5 of his hymns; 2 are in MP. No.325.