“Jesus Loves Me,” is one of the most familiar songs in the Western world.
But who wrote it?
And why?
Until a friend recently told me the story, I’d never wondered about it. I guess I assumed it was like the “ABC” song, something we all knew.
But, the song began from a poem, a composer added the music, and children and adults have been singing it ever since.
Anna Warner wrote it, however, during events leading up to the American Civil War.
Who were Anna Warner and her sister Susan?
The daughters of a New York City investor who lost his fortune in 1837, Anna and Susan Warner (born in 1822 and 1819) lost their fashionable mother at an early age.
The two women–who never married–were devoted to each other and shared literary talent. They began writing for publication in 1849.
Between them, they ultimately published 106 novels and children’s books. They collaborated on eighteen books, writing under pen names Elizabeth Wetherell (Susan) and Amy Lothrop (Anna).
Susan’s first novel, The Wide Wide World was translated into other languages and went through fourteen editions in two years. It was the most popular novel of the time after Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
(Jo March mentioned reading the book in Little Women! You can examine it yourself here)
In addition to thirty-one novels of her own, Anna published two collections of verse in 1858’s Hymns of the Church Militant.
The West Point Connection
As the family fortunes declined, Anna and Susan moved with their father to Constitution Island, up the Hudson River and directly opposite the US Military Academy at West Point, in 1838.
(Wikipedia Commons)
Their uncle, Reverend Thomas Warner, was the Army chaplain at the Academy from 1828-1838.
The two women had long been devout Christians and determined to lead a Bible study for the cadets.
Anna wrote a fresh hymn for her Sunday School class each month.
According to blogger Norma Lee Liles:
Anna realized that if the southern states made good on their threat to withdraw from the Union many of the boys she knew could be killed or wounded in the war that would follow.
While it broke her heart to consider the dismal fate for those too young to have experienced the many blessings of life, she also fully comprehended the importance of leading each of them to Jesus now.
With an urgency brought about by a nation on the brink of dividing, sharing Christ’s love became her mission in life.”
Jesus Loves Me: the poem
Anna wrote the poem, “Jesus Loves Me,” at the request of her sister. Susan needed a poem to console a dying child in her 1860 novel Say and Seal.
The original verses in the novel were these:
Jesus loves me—this I know,
Say and Seal pages 115-116
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to him belong,—
They are weak, but he is strong.
Jesus loves me—loves me still,
Though I’m very weak and ill;
From his shining throne on high,
Comes to watch me where I lie.
Jesus loves me—he will stay,
Close beside me all the way.
Then his little child will take,
Up to heaven for his dear sake”
Jesus Loves Me: The Song
The choirmaster of New York’s Baptist Tabernacle, William Batchelder Bradbury first encountered the poem in 1862.
(Wikipedia Commons)
He was a composer and publisher of such hymns as “Saviour, Like a Shepherd Lead Us;” “He Leadeth Me;” and “Just as I am.”
Bradbury also encouraged Fanny Crosby to devote her talents to writing songs and even took down via dictation the first of her hymns. (She ultimately wrote 9,000 hymns!)
Bradbury loved the sound of children’s choirs and when he read Anna’s poem, decided to put it to a simple tune suitable for children.
He also added the now-familiar chorus: “Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me; the Bible tells me so.”
The combination song and poetry first appeared in his hymnbook Original Hymns in 1862.
According to blogger Norma Lee Liles:
Through the publisher’s established distribution network, the new children’s song quickly worked its way across the North and South.
In the face of the most horrible fighting this nation had ever known, both sides were singing about a Savior who died, yet had risen and still watched over everyone with equal love and compassion.
It was an ironic message for a very ironic time.”
Soon, even West Point cadets sang the song while on military duty.
Many soldiers on the battlefields during the War Between the States sang the song for comfort.
Some people believe President Dwight D. Eisenhower, USMA ’15, may have attended Anna’s Sunday School class.
What happened to Anna and Susan?
Susan died in 1885 and was buried, at the cadets’ request, at the West Point Cemetery. Anna joined her there in 1915.
The two women are the only civilians buried in the military cemetery.
Anna willed their home, Good Crag, to the Academy and it is now a museum in their honor.
A Lasting Legacy
The song has a lasting legacy.
I wrote it about, myself, here.
Is it Scriptural?
Yes, according to the Berean Text website.
In 1944, writer John Hersey wrote an article for The New Yorker Magazine entitled, “Survival.”
Based on interviews with Lt. John F. Kennedy, it tells the harrowing story of the PT 109 crew’s survival in the South Pacific.
Landed safely on an island, the rescue story ends like this:
With the help of the natives, the PT made its way to Bird Island. A skiff went in and picked up the men.
In the deep of the night, the PT and its happy cargo roared back toward base. . . .
[One of the enlisted men] retired topside and sat with his arms around a couple of roly-poly, mission-trained natives.
And in the fresh breeze on the way home they sang together a hymn all three happened to know:
Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to him belong,
They are weak, but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me; yes, Jesus loves me . . . “
And, as a matter of fact, Jesus loves you, too.
Tweetables
Who wrote “Jesus Loves Me?” And why? Click to Tweet
The surprising history behind a song you know so well: “Jesus Loves Me.” Click to Tweet
“Jesus Loves Me,” encouragement from the Civil War. Click to Tweet
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