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Joseph Scriven wrote this hymn in 1855 for one reader. His mother was ill in Ireland. He was in Canada, and he could not get to her.
So he sent her a poem instead. He never meant it to be sung by anyone, and for years his name was not attached to it. It is now one of the most translated hymns in the world — written by a man whose whole point was that he could not be where he was needed.
Listen: What a Friend We Have in Jesus
What a Friend We Have in Jesus — Full Lyrics
Verse 1
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!
Verse 2
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.
Verse 3
Are we weak and heavy laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Saviour, still our refuge,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy 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.
The hymn is built as questions with one answer
Read verses two and three again and notice the shape. Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? Can we find a friend so faithful? Are we weak and heavy laden? Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Five questions. And after each one, the same four words: take it to the Lord in prayer.
That repetition is not lazy writing. It is the argument. The hymn refuses to sort troubles into categories that deserve prayer and categories that do not. Temptation, loneliness, exhaustion, betrayal by friends — the response never changes, because the point is that nothing is disqualified.
“What a privilege” — and the uncomfortable line after it
Most hymns about prayer treat it as a duty. Scriven calls it a privilege — something you are permitted to do, not required to do. A privilege is access you did not earn and could have been denied.
Then comes the line people tend to sing past: O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. That is a harder claim than it sounds. Scriven is saying a portion of our suffering is self-inflicted — not the grief itself, but the extra weight of carrying it alone when we did not have to. Forfeit means to lose something by your own default. Needless means it did not have to be this way.
Coming from a man who had lost two fiancées and could not reach his dying mother, it does not read as a scolding. It reads as someone describing a mistake he knew from the inside.
Who Joseph Scriven was
Scriven was born in Dublin in 1819. The woman he was engaged to drowned the day before their wedding. He emigrated to Canada in his mid-twenties, became engaged again, and that fiancée died of illness before they could marry.
He lived the rest of his life in deliberate poverty near Rice Lake, Ontario — giving away his possessions, and sawing firewood without charge for widows and people too sick to do it themselves. He would not take payment from anyone who could not afford to pay.
The poem to his mother stayed private for years. The account that has come down is that a neighbour sitting with Scriven during an illness found the lines and asked whether he had written them. Scriven is said to have answered: “The Lord and I did it between us.”
About this recording
The recording above is our own traditional gospel arrangement of Scriven’s public-domain text, produced with AI-assisted music generation. The words are unchanged. The setting is new, so if you grew up singing the Converse tune, this will sound like the hymn you know in different clothes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who wrote What a Friend We Have in Jesus?
The words were written by Joseph Medlicott Scriven, an Irishman living in Canada, in 1855. The tune, usually called CONVERSE or ERIE, was composed by Charles Crozat Converse in 1868 — thirteen years after the words, and by someone who never met Scriven.
Why did Joseph Scriven write What a Friend We Have in Jesus?
He wrote it to comfort his mother, who was ill in Ireland while he was living in Canada and unable to travel to her. It was a private poem sent in a letter, not intended for publication, and it circulated anonymously for years before his authorship was known.
Is What a Friend We Have in Jesus in the public domain?
Yes. Scriven’s text dates from 1855 and Converse’s tune from 1868, both far earlier than the 1930 US public-domain cutoff, so both may be printed, projected, sung and recorded freely. A modern choral arrangement of the hymn can still carry its own copyright, so licence the arrangement rather than the hymn. You can hear our public-domain arrangement here.
What Bible verse is What a Friend We Have in Jesus based on?
Two mainly. Proverbs 18:24 — “there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother” — stands behind the title, and John 15:15, where Jesus tells the disciples “I have called you friends.” The third verse leans on Matthew 11:28, “come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.”
What does “what a privilege to carry” mean?
A privilege is access granted rather than earned, and it could have been withheld. Scriven is deliberately not calling prayer a duty. The line frames being able to bring everything to God as something you are permitted to do — which is why the next lines treat failing to do it as a loss rather than a sin.
What does “cumbered with a load of care” mean?
To be cumbered is to be burdened or weighed down — the same word used of Martha in Luke 10:40, “cumbered about much serving.” A load of care is accumulated worry rather than one crisis. The line describes being slowly buried by ordinary anxieties rather than struck by a single disaster.
What happened to Joseph Scriven?
He drowned in Rice Lake, Ontario, in 1886, during a period of illness and low spirits. Whether it was an accident has never been settled, and accounts from the time differ. He was buried near the lake, and a monument to him carries the words of the hymn.
How many verses does What a Friend We Have in Jesus have?
Three, and unusually for a hymn of its era almost every hymnal prints all three. There is no chorus — each verse is eight lines that end where the last one did, on taking it to the Lord in prayer.
