Trinity Tower UMC

Bible Verse of the Day - Thursday, June 18, 2026

Bible Verse of the Day - Wednesday, June 17, 2026

Here is the Western Pennsylvania Conference Prayer Team prayer for the month of June!

Bible Verse of the Day - Friday, June 12, 2026

Bible Verse of the Day - Thursday, June 13, 2026

Just a simple question. If you wish for prayer, or know of someone in need of prayer, please leave their first name only, and we will pray for them and you.

Bible Verse of the Day - Wednesday, June 10, 2026.

Every week, we search the history of a hymn that will be sung in the next Sunday worship service! Learn about Joseph Scriven ad his song "What a Friend We Have in Jesus!"

How does a personal poem written to a mother from a despondent son, recently immigrated from England to a relatively remote section of Canada in the mid-nineteenth century, become one of the most widely sung hymns in the world?

Joseph Medlicott Scriven (1819–1886) was born in Seapatrick, Ireland and died in Ontario, Canada. After attending classes at Trinity College, Dublin, he pursued a military career, where he trained for service in India; but had to abandon that ambition because of his poor health. He returned to Trinity and graduated in 1842.

Scriven’s life was full of tragedy. Following the accidental drowning of his Irish fiancée the evening before their wedding, he moved to Woodstock, Canada West in 1844, where he led a Plymouth Brethren fellowship and taught. Scriven organized a private school in 1850 in Brantford and preached in the area. Some scholars believe that Scriven may have composed his initial draft of “What a Friend” written during this time.

Moving near Clinton in Huron County in 1855, he read the Bible to railway construction workers who were building the Grand Trunk Railway across the Canada West. By 1857, he relocated to Bewdley, supporting himself as a private tutor to the family of Robert Lamport Pengelly, a retired naval officer. Tragedy struck again when his second fiancée, Eliza Catherine Roach, Pengelly’s niece, died in 1860 of an illness shortly before their wedding. Scriven then returned to ministry among the Plymouth Brethren in Bewdley.

Hymnologist Albert Bailey noted that Scriven, a selfless person by nature, was known as “the man who saws wood for poor widows and sick people who are unable to pay.”

Scriven published a collection of his poetic works, Hymns and Other Verses, which included seventy-one hymns “intended to be sung in assemblies of the children of God on the first day of the week and on other occasions when two or three are met together in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” These were followed by thirty-four scriptural paraphrases “not to be sung in the assembly, but to express truth, as well as convey comfort, instruction or reproof to our hearts, in order that we may walk together in obedience.” “What a Friend,” the hymn for which he is known, does not appear in the collection, however. Why not?

Some writers have noted that the hymn was written for his mother, who was suffering from illness. Musical evangelist Ira Sankey spread this account. This assertion is hard to verify, however. A statement from Scriven’s biography by James Cleland includes the author's mother in the dissemination of the hymn but does not clarify other details:
When residing at the house of his friend Mr. Sackville, near Rice Lake, he composed this hymn; making two copies, one of which he sent to his mother, in Dublin, and gave the other to Mrs. Sackville, which the old lady, now over eighty years of age values highly. Probably it was through his mother that the hymn was given to the public.

If indeed “What a Friend” were composed as a personal poem, it may explain why it did not appear in the collection the author published in 1869. The personal first-person plural perspective contrasts with other hymns by the author.

The text has remained unusually stable with few editorial alterations over the years. Edward Caswell published an early manuscript version signed by Scriven that was titled “Pray without Ceasing” in 1919. It appeared in four quatrains, the first three of which are familiar.

Stanza 1 establishes that Jesus is a friend that can bear our sins and burdens. This theme appears in the eighteenth century with Charles Wesley’s “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” (1740) and John Newton’s “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” (1779). Nineteenth-century hymnwriters are especially known for expressing their personal friendship with Jesus. For example, see Louisa M.R. Stead’s “‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” (1882), Elisha A. Hoffman’s “I Must Tell Jesus All of My Trials” (1894), and F***y Crosby’s “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine” (1873). The author uses the first-person plural perspective—perhaps indicating that he and his mother (“we”) have a bond in prayer and need not suffer sin and grief alone.

The second stanza asks two rhetorical questions—rhetorical because, indeed, all humans suffer “trials and temptations” and witness “trouble.” The answer becomes a short refrain: “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” A third rhetorical question asks, “Can we find a friend so faithful . . .?” The intimate friendship with the one who “knows our every weakness” is the source of solace. The refrain returns: “Take it to the Lord in prayer.”

The third stanza reframes the premise of the song with different questions, while the theme remains the same:

Are we weak and heavy laden,
cumbered with a load of care?
Do your friends despise, forsake you?

The answer to both questions is, “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” The closing image of Jesus enfolding his friend in his arms is also a common trope in many hymns from this era.

Albert Bailey notes correctly that Scriven’s poetry is of relatively low quality with monotonous rhymes and trite language. But even Bailey admits, “Our criticism is made harmless by the tremendous service the hymn has rendered. Any unlettered person can understand it; the humblest saint can take its admonitions to heart, practice prayer, find his load more bearable and spiritual life deepened.”

While other tunes appear with this text, CONVERSE by Charles Converse is the most popular. Carlton Young suggests that CONVERSE is reminiscent of Stephen Foster tunes of the era and provides a perfect musical vehicle for this prayerful text. He notes that this tune follows the same general melodic contour as Foster’s “Jeanie with the light brown hair.” Converse, a Massachusetts native, was an associate of William Bradbury and Ira Sankey in revivals and the Sunday school movement.

The range of recording artists who have sung this song is staggering from long-established white performers Pat Boone, Rosemary Clooney, Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton to African American gospel artists Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, and Ike and Tina Turner. More recently, Contemporary Christian artist Paul Baloche has recorded the song, indicating that it continues to have a witness to younger generations. Baloche’s improvisatory coda bridges the nineteenth century with the twenty-first. The hymn’s inclusion in the film Driving Miss Daisy as sung by Little Friendship Missionary Baptist Church Choir confirms its iconic status in the genre.

Bible Verse of the Day - Tuesday, June 9, 2026!