What a Friend
We have in Jesus
What a friend
we have in Jesus
All our sins and grief to bear!
What a privelege 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!

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

Are we weak and heavenly laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge
Take it to the Lord in prayer;
In His arms He'll take and shield thee
Thou wilt find a solace there.


Author- Joseph Scriven, 1819-1886
Composer- Charles C. Converse, 1832-1918

Though this hymn is not considered to be an example of great literary writing, its simply stated truths have brought solace and comfort to countless numbers of God's people since it was first written in 1857. So relevant to the basic spiritual needs of people are these words that many missionaries state that it is one of the first hymns taught to new converts. The very simplicity of the text and music has been its appeal and strength.

Joseph Scriven was born in 1819 of prosperous parents in Dublin. At the age of twenty-five he decided to leave his native country and migrate to Canada. His reasons for leaving his family and the accidental drowning of his fiancee the night before their scheduled wedding.

From that time Scriven developed a totally different pattern of life. He took the Sermon on the Mount literally. It is said that he gave freely of his limited possesions, even sharing the clothing from his own body, if necessary, and never once refused to help anyone who needed it. Ira Sankey tells in his writing of the man who, seeing Scriven in the streets of Port Hope, Ontario, with his sawbuck and saw, asked, "Who is that man? I want him to work for me ." The answer was, "You cannot get that man; he saws wood only for poor widows and sick people who can not pay ." Because of this manner of life Scriven was respected but was considered to be eccentric by those who knew him.

"What a Friend we have in Jesus" was never intended by Scriven for publication. Upon learning of his mother's serious illness and unable to be with her in far-off Dublin, he wrote a letter of comfort enclosing the words of this text. Some time later when he himself was ill, a friend who came to call on him chanced to see the poem scribbled on scratch paper near the bed. The friend read it with keen interest and asked Scriven if he had written the words. Scriven, with typical modesty, replied. "The Lord and I did it between us." After the death of Joseph Scriven, also by accidental drowning, the citizens of Port Hope, Ontario, erected a monument on the Port Hope Peterborough Highway, which runs from Lake Ontario, with the text and these words inscribed:

Four miles north, in Pengally's Cementery, lies the philanthropist and author of this great masterpiece, written at Port Hope, 1857.




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