All for Jesus, all for Jesus

All for Jesus, all for Jesus. William John Sparrow-Simpson* (1859-1952).

This was written as the closing chorus, entitled ‘For the love of Jesus’, in John Stainer*’s cantata The Crucifixion, first performed in Marylebone Parish Church, London, on Ash Wednesday, 24 February 1887. The hymn should not be confused with a piece by the American writer Mary Dagworthy James* (1810-1883), which begins ‘All for Jesus, all for Jesus! All my being’s ransomed powers’*, and which may have been known to Sparrow-Simpson.

Only in recent years has Sparrow-Simpson’s hymn become well known outside its original setting. It appeared as an independent hymn in the British Methodist Hymns and Songs (1969) and its popularity in the last two decades of the 20th century is probably attributable to its inclusion in Broadcast Praise (1981). It originally had five stanzas (as printed in A&MCP), but the third verse, which refers to the Eucharist, is often omitted (as in Hymns and Songs and HP), making it suitable for a wider range of occasions:

All for Jesus - at thine altar
  Thou wilt give us sweet content;
There, dear Lord, we shall receive thee
  In the solemn Sacrament. 

Some books make minor alterations, changing ‘thou’ to ‘you’ and removing ‘sons’ in the last stanza; HfTC (1982) adds a new penultimate stanza.

Sheila Doyle