My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine

based on
O Jesus, my Saviour, I know thou art mine

with
EXPRESSION
AFFECTION
GORDON

I. Precursor: O Jesus, My Saviour

The English hymn “My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine” takes its opening lines from an older hymn, “O Jesus, my Saviour, I know thou art mine,” by Caleb Jarvis Taylor (1763–1817). Taylor was a Methodist preacher, born in Maryland of Irish parents, who spent most of his life and career in Kentucky. This hymn was printed in Taylor’s collection Spiritual Songs (Lexington, KY: Joseph Charles, 1804 | Fig. 1), in eight stanzas of four lines, without music. Notice the first line of stanza 6, “If ever I lov’d, sure I love thee my Lord.”

Although most printings of the hymn thereafter were unattributed and the hymn circulated widely without credit, Taylor’s authorship was affirmed in The Pilgrim’s Songster (Chillicothe, OH: Fredonian Press, 1815 | Fig. 2), edited by Thomas S. Hinde. This version is identical to the 1804 copy above.

Hinde seems to have known Taylor personally and was familiar with his works. He offered some insight in his preface:

[I have chosen items from] the original printed selections of our two western bards, Mr. John A. Granade and Mr. Caleb J. Taylor. These two poets composed their songs during the great revivals of religion in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee about the years 1802, 3, and 4. They appear to have been written in the midst of the Holy Flame—and have since been printed and published all over the continent, and are to be found in some form or other almost in every collection of songs of every order, till at length they are now so garbled that they scarcely bear any resemblance to the original. The peculiar turn of these two interesting poets, the former of whom has gone to receive his reward, the latter nearly ripe for it, is very particularly adapted to the minds and dispositions of the western people. Their language is that of the church in the wilderness, flourishing and triumphant—bursting through heathen darkness and the power and dominion of sin, to behold the full blaze of Gospel day!

. . . I have been favored by Mr. T. with some of his recent productions, and among others that beautiful song to the tune of the stranger, which has not been before published.

A version of the hymn with nine stanzas appeared in The Sacred Songster (Charleston, SC: G.M. Bounetheau, 1809 | Fig. 3), edited by Amos Pilsbury. The added stanza appeared as number 5 (“Tho’ weak and despised, by faith I now stand”), and the lines of stanza 2 had been rearranged. The additional stanza is probably not by Caleb Taylor, but this kind of determination is impossible to make with any certainty. This nine-stanza version was repeated in some other collections, including The Christian Hymn-Book, 3rd Ed. (Cincinnati: Looker & Wallace, 1815).

Within a couple of decades, the hymn had made its way across the Atlantic, appearing in Hymns for Revival, Prayer-Meetings, and Social Worship (Dublin: Primitive Wesleyan Methodist Book-Room, 1838) and other collections. As the century progressed, appearances of this hymn became more sparse, and examples set to music are even more rare, yet it was reprinted well into the twentieth century. For the most common tune setting, EXPRESSION, see section IV below.

II. My Jesus, I Love Thee—Publication

The earliest known publication of “My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine” was in a periodical, The Christian Pioneer (London), vol. 16, no. 2, edited by Joseph Foulkes Winks, February 1862 (Fig. 4). This early version of the hymn spanned six stanzas of four lines, printed without music, unattributed. The resemblance to the earlier hymn by Taylor is in the first two lines and in the recurring line, “If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, it’s now.” The hymn follows the same anapestic meter as its predecessor (11.11.11.11) and can be sung to the same tunes. The version given here is quite likely the original or copied from the original source, given the irregularities of scansion and rhyme—things a hymnal editor would feel compelled to fix or improve.

The six-stanza version is very rare. It was included in The Wesleyan Reform Union Magazine (London), December 1863, p. 144, nearly identical to the previous example, save for the exchange of “regions” for “the heaven” in the last stanza.[1]

The hymn was quoted in an obituary for Richard Beckett, who had died 20 April 1862 at Mexborough, South Yorkshire, England, printed in The Primitive Methodist Magazine (London), the October 1862 issue, p. 596. In that obituary, the writer said, “When he had strength to sing, the following verse was a great favourite with him”:

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign;
My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour, art Thou;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.[2]

A fuller version of the hymn was included at the end of that same October 1862 issue, p. 640. Notice especially the reduction to four stanzas, and several alterations to the text (ex. “pleasures”/“follies”), many of which are still in circulation (Fig. 5).

Also around 1862 or 1863 (the exact timeframe is unclear), the song was quoted in reference to a missionary visit by Joseph Salter to Asian immigrants in London, The Asiatic in England: Sketches of Sixteen Years’ Work Among Orientals (London: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday, 1873), p. 197. Here the hymn was described as the favorite hymn of an Asian preacher. This version, given in two stanzas, included a distinctive variation of the second line:

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine,
My rock and my fortress, my surety divine;
My gracious Redeemer and Saviour art Thou;
If ever I lov’d Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

I will love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
And say, when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,
If ever I lov’d Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.[3]

Considering the book was published in 1873, we do not know whether the author was quoting it the way the Asian pastor knew it or quoting it the way it was printed in a later source.

On 9 July 1864, it was quoted in a letter from “J.P.” in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, to evangelist William Fletcher (1834–), who had traveled to preach there in the summer of that year. Only one stanza was given, as follows. It is not clear whether Fletcher introduced it to the people of Halifax or they already knew it.

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine,
For Thee, all the pleasures of sin I resign;
My gracious Redeemer and Saviour art Thou;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.[4]

The first publication of the hymn in a proper hymn collection was in The London Hymn Book (London: W. Holmes, [1864] | Fig. 6), edited by C. Russell Hurditch, where it was given in four stanzas, without music, unattributed, nearly identical to how it had appeared in The Primitive Methodist Magazine in 1862.

A similar version appeared in The Christian Sentinel (London), no. 92, 1 August 1864. Charles Spurgeon copied it from The London Hymn Book into Our Own Hymn-Book (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1866).

The hymn’s transmission to the United States was described early in 1865, and by that point it had been in circulation for some time. It was mentioned in a letter from John S., a native of Nottingham, England, who was deployed as a member of the Christian Commission (a relief organization tending to the wounded of the American Civil War), while he was stationed at City Point Hospital in Virginia. The letter was sent 17 January 1865, received in Nottingham on 31 January 1865, and printed in Nottingham and Midland Counties Daily Express, Wednesday, 8 March 1865, p. 6. In the letter, the Englishman described introducing the song to American soldiers:

While here I have introduced “My Jesus I love thee” among the soldiers. It is sung now throughout the Union army and so pleased are they with it that I have seen printed slips which some of the soldiers have had printed from the copy I wrote them. The music of it has been set here in Virginia in a very novel way. One of the delegates, anxious to secure it, asked me to sing it. I did so. While he sang the solfa’s, &c., a third learnt to sing it. I took down the solfa’s, &c., in shorthand. It was afterwards fixed on the staff, and is now sung in every State in the Union, and by rebel prisoners too.[6]

The story was corroborated by another Christian Commission worker, R.W. Harlow, who remembered learning the hymn at City Point around 1865, except he had never seen it in print. He supplied the text to the Vermont Christian Messenger, which ran it on the front page, 14 March 1867 (Fig. 7). Harlow’s version had four stanzas, much like the Primitive Methodist version (Fig. 5), except it had repetitions at the end of every stanza. This is an indicator of the text being sung to the Welsh tune by John Ellis, a common pairing at the time, as shown below (Figs. 8,9). For the history of this tune, see section IV below.

The first published example of this text with music was in Melodies of Zion (Fig. 8), published late in 1866 in London. This tune book was intended to complement the text-only collections Times of Refreshing (1860) by J. Denham Smith and Songs of Zion (1864) by Isaac Ashe. Melodies of Zion corresponds well to Ashe’s collection, less well to Smith’s collection, and it contains several texts not found in either of the previous collections. “My Jesus, I love thee” seems to have been added to meet popular demand. The unnamed editor used the four-stanza version of the text with the lesser-known line “My rock and my fortress, my surety Divine,” as in The Asiatic in England (1873). The melody is the Welsh tune by John Ellis.

Another early example was compiled by American evangelist Edward Payson Hammond (1831–1910), in Hymns of Salvation (1867 | Fig. 8), published in London and used for his work in England. This was an updated version of his songbook Praises of Jesus (1865), produced with the musical assistance of William Bradbury, but with “some additions which have been made since my return to Great Britain.” “My Jesus, I love thee” was one of those additions. It is impossible to know if Hammond learned it in the United States or in Great Britain. Hammond’s text was consistent with the Primitive Methodist version, which is also the version used in Virginia during the Civil War, and he used the Welsh tune by John Ellis.

In the United States, the hymn appeared in songbooks starting in 1868. One of those appearances was in The Revivalist (Troy, NY: J. Hillman, 1868 | Fig. 10), edited by Joseph Hillman and L. Hartsough, a collection known for its inclusion of camp-meeting songs and tunes. In this instance, the text was given in four stanzas and contained some unique alterations, such as “being nailed to the tree” (2.2), and “death-sweat” (3.3), while it carried over language like “pleasures of sin” (1.2) and “regions of light” (4.2), which date back to the first printing in The Christian Pioneer (1862). The tune, called “English Melody,” is the Welsh tune by John Ellis.

Also in 1868, the hymn was printed in the North-Western Hymn Book (Chicago: 1868 | Fig. 11), compiled by evangelist D.L. Moody, text only. Moody’s version contains the line “My rock and my fortress,” etc., and is consistent with version printed in Melodies of Zion (Fig. 9) and could have been taken from there. The two earliest American printings, therefore, were published in two different places, by two different sources of transmission.

In the time period covered above, 1862–1868, the hymn has not yet been located in any Canadian literature, and the earliest appearance of the hymn in Canada does not seem to be before 1878, when it appeared in a Toronto edition of Gospel Hymns No. 3, and it was mentioned in a story called The Toronto Rhine Boys by Maria Simpson. The emergence of the hymn in Canada, which requires more research, has important ramifications for its purported authorship, as discussed below.

III. My Jesus, I Love Thee—Authorship

Some early printings of the hymn acknowledged its presence in The London Hymn Book, otherwise the authorship of the text was unknown for several decades, until two choices emerged in the early part of the 20th century.

1. William Ralph Featherston

The common ascription to William Ralph Featherston (1846–1873) is based solely on the testimony of Elizabeth Featherston Wilson (1835–1917) as told to Ira Sankey, and relayed in the British version of his book My Life and Sacred Songs (London: Morgan & Scott, 1906):

The author of this beautiful hymn, which has become to familiar to us, was a Canadian. William Ralph Featherston was born and reared in or near Montreal, Canada. In 1858, when only about sixteen years of age, he composed the words of the hymn which has outlived him. He sent the lines to his aunt, Mrs. E. Featherston Wilson, for criticism. Mrs. Wilson, herself a poetess, commended it highly and wrote her nephew to have it published. In 1862 the hymn first appeared in the London Hymn Book—without the author’s name. The music was composed by Rev. A.J. Gordon, D.D. Mr. Featherston died in Montreal in 1870, aged twenty-eight. Mr. Featherston’s name has never appeared in connexion with the hymn. Mrs. Featherston Wilson, now of Los Angeles, California, still cherishes among her treasures the original copy of the hymn in Mr. Featherston’s handwriting.[7]

William Ralph Featherston was the son of John Featherston (1815–1870) and Mary Stephenson (1819–1884), and grandson of Ralph Featherston (1792–1861) and Mary Martin (1797–1815). Ralph and Mary were married in Allendale, Northumberland, England, on 7 May 1814 and shortly thereafter emigrated to Quebec, Canada, where John was born on 18 June 1815. Mary died in childbirth. Ralph thereafter married Elizabeth Curry (1797–1880) and had eleven more children, all born and raised in Canada. The family patriarch Ralph died 8 Nov. 1861 in Burtonville, Quebec, Canada.

Elizabeth Featherston was born 12 October 1835 to Ralph Featherston and his second wife Elizabeth, making her half-sister of John. Elizabeth married Benjamin Wilson (1831–1920) at the Odelltown Methodist Church, Quebec, in 1854. They were counted in West Oxford, Ontario, in 1861, 1871, and 1881, described as Wesleyan Methodist. They had four children. In 1895, they were in Fergus Falls, Minnesota; they were naturalized as U.S. citizens in 1900, and by the time she wrote to Ira Sankey, they were living in Los Angeles. She died 7 December 1917 in Los Angeles, California.

William, son of John and Mary, nephew of Elizabeth, appears to have spent his entire life in Canada, born 23 July 1846 near Montréal, Quebec, dying in Montréal on 20 May 1873. He married Julia Ritchie McAllister (1845–1885) and had a son, John Hamilton Featherston (1870–1968).

All of this leads to some important observations. First, Sankey’s account included and has led to some factual inaccuracies, especially in regard to William’s age, but none of these errors (apparently due to Elizabeth’s fuzzy memory) disqualify the hymn as being written by William. For example, William turned twelve in 1858, or sixteen in July of 1862. If he was the author of “My Jesus, I love thee,” he had to have written it before he turned sixteen, because the hymn was in print by February 1862. The hymn as it was printed The Christian Pioneer suggests the work of an amateur writer, such as William would have been as a teen.

Second, if the hymn was written in Canada and sent to his aunt in West Oxford, Ontario, there is a significant documentary gap in understanding how and why the hymn was transmitted to England and why there is a corresponding lack of data to be found in Canada during the same time period. This is perhaps the most troubling lapse of information. We have been unable, for example, to find William or Elizabeth in passenger/immigration lists traveling to or from England around 1860.[8] It is possible, nonetheless, for the hymn to have been shared informally or in a very limited capacity in Canada while it exploded in popularity in England, if only we knew how or why it was sent to England.

Third, the manuscript once held by Mrs. Wilson is assumed to be lost, as its present location is unknown.[9]

2. James H. Duffell

“My Jesus, I love thee” was credited to “Jas. Duffill” in Victorious Life Hymns (Philadelphia: Sunday School Times, 1919), edited by Charles M. Alexander, and likewise to “James Duffill” in The Sunday School Times (Philadelphia) on 18 Feb. 1928 and 14 May 1938.[10] It was credited similarly to “Jas. Duffill” in The Musical Salvationist, December 1938. When the hymn was printed in The Methodist Hymn-Book (1933), it was credited to “J.H. Duffell.” An explanation for this attribution emerged in a letter to the Rev. E.C. Barton (Methodist Book Steward) in 1939, from Mr. Samuel Newby, of West Bromwich, Staffordshire, who claimed the words of “My Jesus, I love thee” were written by J.H. Duffell under trying circumstances, and were used for the first time at a class meeting at Spon Lane, West Bromwich Circuit, early in the 1860s.[11]

James Haynes Duffell (1811–1883) lived most of his life in the West Bromwich area. In the 1861 census, he was an iron smelter, living at Green Street, West Bromwich, with his wife, two sons, and a daughter. In 1881, he sailed on the Lusitania from London to Sydney, Australia, and died there, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, on 13 November 1883, aged 72. He was buried at Balmain, a suburb of Sydney, and the cemetery records say he was an iron smelter, aged 72, and his religion was Primitive Methodist.

Furthermore, the author of the letter, Samuel Newby (1861–1947), was an ironfounder in the West Bromwich area, whose aunt Martha married Oliver Duffell, one of James Haynes Duffell’s sons. Although this Samuel Newby was a baby in 1861, he would have been 20 when James Duffell went to Australia in 1881, and he likely would have known James H. Duffell through family, church, or business connections.

On the surface, Duffell’s candidacy is much more plausible than Featherston’s, especially in regard to the hymn’s emergence among Methodists in England. Unfortunately, like Featherston, his authorship was not declared until long after his death, and no supporting manuscript evidence survives.

IV. Tunes

1. EXPRESSION

One of the earliest and most enduring musical pairings for “O Jesus, my Saviour, I know thou art mine” is the tune EXPRESSION, first printed in The Sacred Harp (Philadelphia: T.K. & P.G. Collins, 1844 | Fig. 12), edited by B.F. White & E.J. King. The editors of The Makers of the Sacred Harp (2010) regard this tune as a variant of the earlier tune CHEERFUL in William Walker’s Sacred Harmony (1835).[12] The label “Zion Songster, p. 261” refers to the presence of this text in Zion Songster, Rev. Ed. (1834), edited by Peter D. Myers.

2. AFFECTION

The tune known in some hymnals as AFFECTION, or in others as FIDELITY or MY JESUS, I LOVE THEE or CALLESTR, is by Welsh composer John Ellis (1760–1839). It was published under the name ST. MEIFOD in the November 1821 issue of Yr Eurgrawn Wesleyaidd (“The Wesleyan Journal”), under Ellis’s pseudonym Pencerrd Myllin (Fig. 13). This is the earliest known printing of the tune; it was not included in Ellis’s Mawl yr Arglwydd (1816).

John Ellis is often credited with improving the quality of congregational singing in Wales. He was christened on 8 November 1760 in the parish of Llangwm, Denbighshire. As a young boy he developed an interest in music and learned to play the flute. He was apprenticed to a saddler in the village of Llanrwst, and after a time opened his own shop in that city. During this period of time he also married and had at least three children.

In the year 1800, Ellis joined the Calvinistic Methodists and shortly thereafter became a traveling singing teacher. As an itinerant music instructor he traveled from village to village throughout Northern Wales teaching young people and congregations how to sing devotional music. According to one biographer, “No one did so much in his time to improve congregational singing among the Methodists.”[13] In 1816, Ellis published a collection of hymn tunes, Mawl yr Arglwydd (“The Lord’s Praise”). Some time afterward he relocated to Llanfyllin, then in 1822 moved to Liverpool, England, where he became a coal merchant and served as precentor at the Pall Mall Calvinistic Methodist Church. He joined the Bedford Street Chapel in Liverpool five years later, served as their precentor, held singing classes at the church, and was elected as a deacon in 1836. He died in Liverpool on 31 January 1839 and was buried in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel cemetery at Stanhope Street, in Liverpool.[14]

3. GORDON

The most popular tune for this hymn is the one written by Adoniram Judson Gordon (1836–1895) while he was pastor of Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston. It was first printed in a collection he edited, The Vestry Hymn and Tune Book (Boston: Henry A. Young, 1872 | Fig. 14). In this instance, he called it MY JESUS I LOVE THEE, and he was credited as the composer in the Alphabetical Index of Tunes. The text was unattributed. He used the version from The London Hymn Book (Fig. 6), and he credited it that way in another collection he edited, The Service of Song for Baptist Churches, New & Enlarged Ed. (1876), No. 1105.

Gordon’s son, Ernest B. Gordon, described his father’s love for hymns and music:

Hymnology was, indeed, his only diversion, a spring of refreshment and a means of relaxation after tension, as fiction is to most men. Matching in spare moments old hymns to new tunes, writing either hymns or tunes as the case required, humming into being new melodies as he went to sleep, singing the old ones with his family till all throats were hoarse and all lungs weary save his own—here was his unfailing resource. And so responsive was he to music that a few chords would often suffice to bring him downstairs to the side of the piano, as if an invisible, yet no less potent, spell were working.[15]

by CHRIS FENNER
with GORDON TAYLOR
and BRETT NELSON
for Hymnology Archive
28 July 2021
rev. 8 August 2021

Footnotes:

1. The Wesleyan Reform Union Magazine, vol. 4 (London: Wesleyan Reform Book Room, Dec. 1863), p. 144: Archive.org

2. The Primitive Methodist Magazine, 3rd ser., vol. 20 (London: Richard Davies, Oct. 1862), p. 596: Google Books

3. Joseph Salter, The Asiatic in England: Sketches of Sixteen Years’ Work Among Orientals (London: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday, 1873), p. 197: Archive.org

4. J.E. Fletcher, The Life of William Fletcher (London: Figg & Co., 1865), p. 138: Google Books

5. “Love to Jesus,” The Christian Sentinel, no. 92 (Trafalgar Square, London: Army Scripture Readers’ and Soldiers’ Friend Society, 1 August 1864), p. 122: Google Books

6. “Letter from the War,” The Nottingham and Midland Counties Daily Express (8 March 1865), p. 6: PDF

7. Ira Sankey, My Life and Sacred Songs (London: Morgan & Scott, 1906), pp. 165–167: Archive.org

8. See especially Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, multiple vols. (1981–).

9. One descendant of Mrs. Wilson contacted by Gordon Taylor in July 2021 was aware of the family story but did not know what happened to the manuscript.

10. The Sunday School Times (Philadelphia), 18 February 1928, p. 1: Archive.org ; 14 May 1938, p. 354: Archive.org

11. Email from Gordon Taylor, 14 July 2021. “Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the source of that information, as the source material for my 1989 Companion has been inaccessible in a Salvation Army warehouse for more than 10 years, and I don't know if I will ever see it again.”

12. David Warren Steel & Richard H. Hulan, The Makers of the Sacred Harp (Urbana: University of Illinois, 2010), p. 196.

13. T. Mardy Rees, “John Ellis,” Notable Welshmen (1700–1900) (Carnarvon, England: Herald Office, 1908), p. 181: HathiTrust

14. John Ellis’s birth date is difficult to validate, as that name was very common in Wales at the time. The John Ellis buried at the Wesleyan cemetery was reportedly 75 (born ca. 1764). Some sources give his lifespan as 1750–1834.

15. Ernest B. Gordon, A Biography with Letters and Illustrative Extracts (NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1896), p. 194: HathiTrust

Related Resources:

James Mearns, “My Jesus, I love thee,” A Dictionary of Hymnology, with Supplement, ed. John Julian (London: J. Murray, 1907), p. 1676: HathiTrust

T. Mardy Rees, “John Ellis,” Notable Welshmen (1700–1900) . . . with Brief Notes, in Chronological Order (Carnarvon, England: Herald Office, 1908), p. 181: HathiTrust

T.R. Roberts, “John Ellis,” Eminent Welshmen: A Short Biographical Dictionary (Cardiff: Educational Pub. Co, 1908), p. 88: Archive.org

D.E. Jones, “Welsh Musicians, from the earliest period to the present day,” Druid (Scranton, PA: 20 July 1911), p. 4.

“Cerddoriaeth a Cherddorion: ‘Yr Eurgrawn Wesleaidd,’” Y Gwyliedydd Newydd (Wales, 27 Aug. 1919), pp. 4–5: National Library of Wales

Gordon Avery, “Calling the Tunes,” War Cry (15 September 1956), p. 14.

Robert David Griffith & Huw Williams, “John Ellis (1760–1839), saddler and musician,” Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig (Dictionary of Welsh Biography) (1959): https://biography.wales/article/s-ELLI-JOH-1760

Karen Lynn Davidson, Our Latter-day Hymns: the Stories and the Messages (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1988), pp. 114–116.

Gordon Taylor, “My Jesus I love thee,” Companion to the Song Book of the Salvation Army, North American Ed. (Atlanta, GA: Salvation Army, 1990), pp. 117–118.

Maggie Humphreys & Robert Evans, eds., Dictionary of Composers for the Church in Great Britain and Ireland (London: Mansell, 1997), p. 104.

Brett Nelson, “How Firm a Foundation,” Latter-day Saint Hymnology (17 Feb. 2019): https://ldshymnology.wordpress.com/tag/john-ellis/

Leland Ryken, “My Jesus, I love thee,” 40 Favorite Hymns of Christian Faith (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2022), pp. 37–39: Amazon

Surnames Index to all Burials, Wesleyan Chapel, Upper Stanhope Street, Toxteth, 1827 to 1869: https://www.toxtethparkcemetery.co.uk/

“My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/my_jesus_i_love_thee_i_know_thou_art_mi

“O Jesus, my Saviour, I know thou art mine,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/o_jesus_my_savior_i_know_thou_art_mine