"What a Friend we Have in Jesus" - The Story

Joseph Scriven
(1820 - 1886)
‘What a friend we have in Jesus’ is one of the most beloved hymns in the whole of Christendom. Its sung all around the World. But people seldom stop and think, “Where did this wonderful hymn come from”? Well It came from the heart and the pen of a young man, born in 1820 in Dublin, Ireland. His name was Joseph Scriven. He graduated from Trinity College and then migrated to Canada and after migrating to Canada, he met a beautiful young girl and fell in love with her. They determined to get married and they were young and idealistic and said, If we have any problems, “We’ll just take those problems to the Lord, and we’ll pray until they are resolved and then we’ll return to each other in great love and affection” and that’s what they determined to do.

The day before their wedding, this beautiful young girl went out with some friends for a boat ride, and it was reported that she said that in the midst of the boat ride, “this is my last ride as a bride.” Suddenly a gust of wind came up, capsized the boat. Everybody was rescued except for the fiancée and she sank to the bottom. Joseph was in his room, and there was a knock on the door, and an envelope was handed to him with a brief, tragic message that his fiancé was dead. He was overcome with grief. What would he do, You know? His whole life seemed to have just lost in a moment. So he got on his knees and he began to pray, and he asked God to help him, because he felt like he was being inundated with this sorrow and this tragedy. And he prayed and he asked God to help him and God was faithful and answered his prayer. It wasn’t long after that, that Joseph’s mother came to him with her own tribulations, and he reached out to help her by writing this song. He wrote out of his experience. He knew what he was speaking about when he said, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear, what a privilege to carry, everything to God in prayer.” – As narrated by Ragan Courtney. (Source: Gaither Gospel Series – Irish Homecoming)