Words: , 1878. Music: . |
“One day in a children’s meeting in Utica, New York,” the Rev. E. P. Hammond writes me, “while I was explaining how Jesus loved us and gave himself for us, I noticed a bright-looking girl bursting into tears. She remained at the inquiry-meeting, and with others was soon happy in the love of Christ. The next day she handed me a letter of which this is a part: ‘I think I have found the dear Jesus, and I do not see how I could have rejected him so long. I think I can sing with the rest of those who have found him, Jesus is mine. The first time I came to the meetings I cried, but now I feel like singing all the time.’ This prompted me to write the hymn, but I had no thought of its ever being sung…
“Mr. Spurgeon was very fond of this hymn. At the first meeting in his building one of his deacons said to me, ‘This Tabernacle will seat six thousand grown people, but there are eight thousand crowded into it to-day.’ Three thousand could not get in on account of the crowd. Every child had one of our hymn-books, and all united in singing this hymn which they loved so much. It has been sung in our meetings in nearly every state in the Union, and translated into many languages. We sang it in our daily meetings in Jerusalem, near where Christ was crucified, and away in Alaska, two thousand miles north of San Francisco. Thousands of children sang it in Norway and Sweden, day after day.
I feel like singing all the time,
My tears are wiped away;
For Jesus is a friend of mine,
I’ll serve Him every day.
Refrain
I’m singing, singing,
Singing all the time;
Singing, singing,
Singing all the time.
When on the cross my Lord I saw,
Nailed there by sins of mine;
Fast fell the burning tears; but now,
I’m singing all the time.
Refrain
When fierce temptations try my heart,
I sing, Jesus is mine;
And so, though tears at times may start,
I’m singing all the time.
Refrain
The wondrous story of the Lamb,
Tell with that voice of thine,
Till others, with the glad new song
Go singing all the time.
Refrain