The first song many children learn in Sunday school began as a poem in a novel: “Jesus Loves Me”

“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Millions of children have sung those words before they could read them. Few know that the song began as a poem spoken to a dying child in a novel.

The verses were written by Anna Bartlett Warner and appeared in Say and Seal, a novel published in 1860 by her sister, Susan Warner. The two sisters wrote together and were popular authors in the United States.

The scene and the tune

In the novel, a character comforts a sick young boy by speaking the words of the poem to him. The simple lines assure the child of Jesus’s love, whatever happens. Readers were moved by the scene, and the poem began to circulate on its own. In 1862, the composer William Bradbury, known for his work with Sunday schools, set the poem to music and added the chorus: “Yes, Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.”

The tune is short, easy to sing and easy to remember, which made it ideal for children.

The Warner sisters

Anna and Susan Warner lived on Constitution Island, near West Point in New York. They held Bible classes for cadets from the military academy for many years. Anna wrote many hymns and poems, but none became as famous as this one. Missionaries took “Jesus Loves Me” across the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It has been translated into a huge number of languages, and in many countries it was among the first Christian songs people learned.

In Ghana and Nigeria, Sunday school children sing it in English, Twi, Ga, Ewe, Yoruba and Igbo.

A theologian's answer

A story often told about the Swiss theologian Karl Barth says that when a student asked him to sum up his life’s work, he replied with the words of this song: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Whether or not he said it exactly that way, the story shows how deep a simple song can go.

For adults too

The song is sung at funerals, in hospital wards and at baptisms. Its simplicity speaks to people at the end of life as well as the beginning. Many Christians say it was the first hymn they ever learned. Chaplains say it is often one of the last that very old or very sick people can still remember and sing.