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...