What a friend we have in Jesus

As the 21st c dawned, the popularity of this hymn showed little sign of abating in those circles where it has been much chosen and much sung for nearly 150 years. Joseph Medlicott Scriven, a man who endured much personal grief, wrote it for the comfort of his mother in her sorrows c1855, near Port Hope, Ontario, Canada. ‘The Lord and I did it between us’, he told a friend. It appeared anonymously in H L Hastings’ 1865 collection Social Hymns; in the Bliss and Sankey Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs it was first ascribed to H Bonar, then in 1879 ‘anon’. Gospel Hymns N0.5 (Sankey, McGranahan and Stebbings) at last credited it to its true author a year after his death, in 1887. Several hymnal companions and books about hymns enlarge on its history, among them Cliff Knight in his A Companion to Christian Hymns. Even editors aware of its limitations have bowed to popular sentiment not to omit it. Radical revisions have proved impossible or unacceptable, but in stz 3 the present book, like HTC and others, has modified ‘cumbered’ (line 2), and ‘Precious Saviour, still our refuge -/ take it to the Lord in prayer … / thou wilt find a solace there.’

The author’s reported experience and comment moved Fred Pratt Green in the next century to write The wind of the spirit still blows where it will. This tribute from one hymnwriter to another, about creativity through bereavement, incorporates Scriven’s stz 1 and concludes with: ‘Joe Scriven, Joe Scriven, who dares to deny:/ “We did it between us, the good Lord and I!

b Seapatrick, Co Down, Ireland 1819, d Bewdley, Rice Lake, Ontario, Canada 1886. Trinity Coll Dublin, 1835; a member of the Christian (Plymouth) Brethren, he cut short his studies to enlist in the army and train at the Addiscombe Military Coll in Surrey, but poor health compelled him to leave; he returned to complete his BA in 1842 before moving permanently to Canada 2 years later. There he became a schoolteacher and private tutor at Woodstock and Brantford, near Bewdley, occupied also in voluntary social work including help for disabled people, and giving away much of his income. He was twice engaged to be married, on each occasion the bride-to-be died prematurely, one by drowning and the other from TB. He found lasting friendship with a naval family, the Pengelleys and Sackvilles, but physical and financial distress hastened depression in his later years. Fearful of becoming a burden to others, his own death by drowning was thought by some to be suicide, though this was never established. Stories have tended to multiply around his life and his hymn, and in 1910 a monument was erected beside the lake some 10 miles north of Port Hope, Ontario. His Hymns and other Verses appeared in 1869, one of them ensuring his enduring influence. No.614.