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