"Jesus Loves Me"
(above: audio, youngest singers, from 2025 Hymn Camp)
"Jesus Loves Me" (1860) could be said to be one of the first hymns written for children in America. It was written by the sisters Anna and Susan Warner for their novel Say and Seal, for a scene in which a Sunday School teacher sings it to a dying child. It is a simple song in both message and tune (which was written by William B Bradbury). Yet its theology is deep: "thou has bled and died for me. I will henceforth live for thee" (v. 3), even reminding the child that "God prepares a home for me and someday his face I'll see" (v. 4). Usually only the first first is sung, and by very little children, today, as we did for our 2025 Hymn Camp
To recognize the need to sing our hymns in various mediums and languages, the Choristers learned it in American Sign Language in 2026. It was good we did: when we sang it at the Leland Legacy senior home (pictured above), a hearing-impaired gentleman thanked us!
Source: Morgan, Then Sings My Soul (W Publishing, 2011).
Scores: #67 from Hymns of Childhood, for Primary and Junior Grades (Princeton, NJ: Tuller-Meredith, 1939) and A Child’s Book of Hymns, sel & arr by Majorie Morrison Wyckoff, illus by Masha (NY: Random House, 1945) (see above).
(below, video of the 2026 Hymn Camp)
This page has paths:
- Part 7: Early 20th-Century Hymns Alisa Clapp-Itnyre