Words & Music: , 1870.

“I think it was in June, 1870, that ‘Je­sus Loves Even Me’ was writ­ten,” writes . “Mr. and Mrs. Bliss were at that time mem­bers of my fam­i­ly in Chi­ca­go [Il­li­nois]. One morn­ing Mrs. Bliss came down to break­fast and said, as she en­tered the room: ‘Last night Mr. Bliss had a tune giv­en to him that I think is go­ing to live and be one of the most use­ful that he has writ­ten. I have been sing­ing it all morn­ing, and I can­not get it out of my mind.’ She then sang the notes over to us. The idea of Bliss, in writ­ing the hymn, was to bring out the truth that the peace and com­fort of a Christ­ian are not found­ed so much up­on his love to Christ as up­on Christ’s love to him, and that to oc­cu­py the mind with Christ’s love would pro­duce love and con­se­cra­tion…How much God has used this lit­tle song to lead sin­ners and doubt­ing Christ­ians to look away to Je­sus, eter­ni­ty alone can tell.”

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Mr. Bliss said that this song was suggested to him by hear­ing the chor­us of the hymn “Oh, how I love Je­sus,” re­peat­ed ve­ry fre­quent­ly in a meet­ing which he at­tend­ed. Af­ter join­ing in the chor­us a num­ber of times the thought came to him, “Have I not been sing­ing enough about my poor love for Je­sus, and shall I not ra­ther sing of his great love for me?” Un­der the im­pulse of this thought he went home and com­posed this, one of his most pop­u­lar child­ren’s hymns.

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