When we are in the midst of some terribly painful experience, we find great comfort from a friend who stays nearby. It may be our pain while suffering in a hospital bed, or our grief while weeping beside the casket of a loved one, or our heartache while realizing that a close friend has turned against us. In any of those hard times we gain strength from that special, loyal friend whose presence assures us that we don’t have to deal with this alone.
That principle has been pointed out many times by those who have taught from the book of Job. The enormous pain that crushed that godly man’s soul, emotionally (and then his body, physically) motivated his friends to come near and sit with him (Job 2:11-13). He was helped, though very imperfectly and sometimes incorrectly, not by what they said, but just by not leaving him alone in his hurt. We have all known how much having a friend stay with us amidst our tragedies has meant to us.
The best friend we could possibly have is Jesus. In John 15:15, He has called us His friends. In Hebrews 13:5 He promises never to leave us. In Ephesians 1:11, He assures us that He is in total control. In Romans 8:28, He promises that He will cause all things to work out for His glory and our good. His friendship is better than any mere human being. He doesn’t just make us feel better by His presence, but with power and love actually works to carry us through our hard times, and to bring good from our troubles. And so we sing of that in such hymns as “Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners” and “I’ve Found a Friend, O Such a Friend.”
Evangelical Anglican Bishop of Liverpool J. C. Ryle (1816-1900 … a contemporary of Charles Spurgeon) wrote this about having Jesus as a friend. “If you are in Christ, then you have a Friend, a mighty Friend, a loving Friend, a wise Friend, a Friend that never fails!” Sinners and saints (and aren’t we all both!) could not hope for a better friend than Jesus! We should be very grateful we have a friend such as Christ. We read in Proverbs 18:24, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” A believer’s best friend is Jesus!
In this study, we have that comforting promise in the hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” It was written in Canada near Port Hope, Ontario in 1855 by Irish immigrant Joseph Medlicott Scriven (1819-1886). His life was filled with grief and trials, and he needed the solace of the Lord that he wrote about in this hymn. Born in Seapatrick, County Down, he was educated at Trinity College in Dublin. His future seemed full of hope. He was engaged to be married to his Irish sweetheart when tragedy struck. All preparations had been made for the wedding ceremony and the date had been fixed. But the day before the wedding, his promised bride was accidentally drowned, and he was plunged into the deepest of sorrow. On the night before the marriage, Scriven’s soon-to-be wife travelled along the river to meet him. In a moment of madness her horse was startled and threw her headfirst in the rushing waters beneath. Knocked unconscious and unresponsive, she drowned just a few minutes before Scriven arrived. When Joseph saw her body being taken from the water, he suffered shock which was to stay with him the remainder of his life.
Trying to escape his immense sorrow, he went across the ocean to Port Hope, Ontario, Canada. He put thousands of miles between his familiar Dublin home and the difficult memories it carried. Because he had a college education, Joseph found employment as a private tutor to the children of a wealthy family named Pengally. Joseph became a live-in tutor. He soon found a man who was to become his best friend, James Sackville.
In the spring of 1854, Joseph fell in love a second time. He met a beautiful woman named Eliza Catherine Roche, daughter of Lieutenant Andrew Roche of the Canadian Royal Navy. She had been teaching the children of that seaman. Tragedy struck again. Six weeks before they were to be married, Eliza contacted pneumonia and died at the age of just 23 years. In 1855, Scrivens received word that his mother was seriously ill. Unable to be with her, he wrote a poem entitled, “Pray Without Ceasing,” which became the hymn we sing today as “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” He kept a copy of the poem in his desk drawer and put it out of his mind.
With these two tragic blows, Joseph determined to give himself to helping others. The twenty-five year old Scriven took a vow of poverty, sold all of his earthly possessions, and vowed to give his life to the physically handicapped and financially destitute. He preached at the Balieboro Baptist Church whenever they needed someone to fill in for the pastor. Joseph gave away his income to needy people. Faithfully, he cut firewood for widows and needy people who had no money. A member of the Plymouth Brethren, he overcame his sorrow by losing himself in the help of others.
Scriven was described as having short grey hair, a close-cropped beard, sparkling blue eyes, and the face of an angel. He spoke to everyone he came in contact with about the love of Jesus. People would often ask if they could hire him to cut wood for them to which he would respond, “I only help those in need and ask nothing in return.”
In 1886, thirty one years later, his body was worn, his mind weary with disappointment, and he was no longer living with the Pengally family. His friend, James Sackville, took him to live with himself and to care for him. Joseph was very ill and wanted his friend James to write down his last will and testament. James went to Joseph’s desk to get a piece of paper and pen and found the poem that Joseph had sent to his mother so long ago.
Joseph’s condition worsened. One day James went to Joseph’s room to check on him and found the room empty. A search was made around the property and finally Joseph’s body was found near a shallow creek. In his delirium, Joseph had staggered from his room and gone down to a nearby creek. They found him on his knees, in a position of prayer, face down in six inches of water, drowned, some wondered if by suicide. He did not live to see his song carried to every corner of the globe.
James sent Joseph’s poem to a Christian newspaper and it was published. Indeed, for some time after it was printed its authorship was unknown, being sometimes incorrectly attributed to the Scottish preacher and hymn-writer, Horatius Bonar. It was only later that Scriven became recognized as the author of the hymn that has blessed so many thousands of believers. Two decades later, the great American evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, came across the song and believed it to be one of the most touching modern hymns that he had ever heard. It was Moody who gave the song a national platform.
Scriven published a collection of his poetic works, “Hymns and Other Verses,” which included seventy-one hymns “intended to be sung in assemblies of the children of God on the first day of the week and on other occasions when two or three are met together in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” These were followed by thirty-four scriptural paraphrases “not to be sung in the assembly, but to express truth, as well as convey comfort, instruction or reproof to our hearts, in order that we may walk together in obedience.” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” the hymn for which he is known, does not appear in the collection, however. If indeed “What a Friend” were composed as a personal poem, it may explain why it did not appear in the collection the author published in 1869.
The text has remained unusually stable with few editorial alterations over the years. Edward Samuel Caswell (1861–1938) published an early manuscript version signed by Scriven that was titled “Pray without Ceasing” (from 1 Thessalonians 5:17) in 1919.
In stanza 1, we sing of a divine friend who has borne “all our sins and griefs.” This is what Jesus promised in Matthew 11:28-30 when He said, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” Wonderful peace is available to our souls if we will bring our prayer requests to Him. And, as Scriven wrote, “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear” when we fail to do that. Our relief doesn’t come from a subjective psychological benefit, as if praying in and of itself makes us feel better. No, it is because there is a real objective person who loves us, who hears us, and who answers us.
What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!
In stanza 2, we sing of a divine friend who stands with us in “trials and temptations” and “trouble,” three of the things that are most common and universal in this mortal life. And we should not merely think about temptations to sin in terms of wicked actions, but also of such attitudes as depression and despair and discouragement. These are things to which we should never succumb, since we have this friend who is with us, giving us His comfort and strength, and who has repeatedly told us not to fear. Even more so than for Job as his friends came to share his sorrows, “Jesus knows our every weakness,” and “the Man of sorrows” of Isaiah 53:3 “will all our sorrows share.”
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer!
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer!
In stanza 3, we sing of a divine friend who sees us bent over with a terrible, weighty “load of care.” These are cares about our health, our families, our jobs, our relationships, our failures, our finances, our reputations, and on and on we could go. There is nothing which we face about which He does not know and for which He is unable or unwilling to come to our aid. From the Psalms, we remember that He is our refuge, a “precious Savior” who will “take and shield” us, enabling us to “find a solace there.” And all we have to do is to “take it to the Lord in prayer.”
Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge – take it to the Lord in prayer!
Do your friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In his arms He’ll take and shield thee; thou wilt find a solace there.
While other tunes have appeared with this text, CONVERSE by Charles Converse (1832-1918) is by far the most popular. Methodist hymnologist Carlton Young suggests that CONVERSE is reminiscent of Stephen Foster tunes of the era and provides a perfect musical vehicle for this prayerful text. He notes that this tune follows the same general melodic contour as Foster’s “Jeanie with the light brown hair.” Converse, a Massachusetts native and attorney who had studied law and music in Leipzig, Germany, was an associate of William Bradbury (1816–1868) and Ira Sankey in revivals and the Sunday school movement.
Scriven’s biographer, James Cleland, noted in 1895, “In the steerage of the steamer, a traveler returning from Europe, heard a mixed company, who spoke different languages, united in singing this hymn.” A modest poem, written in Canada as a private meditation for the author’s mother in Ireland, has found its way into many hearts worldwide and, undoubtedly, has been a source of comfort for millions of Christians for more than one hundred fifty years.
Here is a link to the congregational singing of the hymn from First Methodist Church in Houston, Texas.