April 5, 2005

I Gave My Life for Thee

Frances Ridley Havergal, 1836-1879

    For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15.

    This was Frances Havergal’s first hymn. She wrote it after seeing Sternberg’s painting Ecce Homo in Düsseldorf, Germany. A caption on the painting read, “This have I done for thee; what has thou done for Me?” Here is what Miss V. G. Havergal wrote about this hymn:

    In Frances Havergal's copy, she gives this title, “I did this for thee; what hast thou done for Me?” Motto placed under a picture of our Saviour in the study of a German divine. On January 10, 1858, she had come in weary, and sitting down she read the motto, and the lines of her hymn flashed upon her. She wrote them in pencil on a scrap of paper. Reading them over she thought them so poor that she tossed them on the fire, but they fell out untouched. Showing them some months later to her father, he encouraged her to preserve them, and wrote the tune Baca specially for them. The hymn was printed on a leaflet, 1859, and in Good Words, February, 1860. Published also in The Ministry of Song, 1869. Though Frances Havergal consented to the alterations in Church Hymns, she thought the original more strictly carried out the idea of the motto, “I gave My life for thee, What hast thou done for Me?”

    Frances Havergal herself said about this hymn:

I was so overwhelmed on Sunday at hearing three of my hymns touchingly sung in Perry Church, that I never before realized the high privilege of writing for the “great congregation,” especially when they sang, I Gave My Life for Thee to my fa­ther’s tune Baca.

Original Words:

I gave My life for thee, My precious blood I shed,
That thou might ransomed be, and raised up from the dead
I gave, I gave My life for thee, what hast thou given for Me?
I gave, I gave My life for thee, what hast thou given for Me?

My Father’s house of light, My glory circled throne
I left for earthly night, for wanderings sad and lone;
I left, I left it all for thee, hast thou left aught for Me?
I left, I left it all for thee, hast thou left aught for Me?

I suffered much for thee, more than thy tongue can tell,
Of bitterest agony, to rescue thee from hell.
I’ve borne, I’ve borne it all for thee, what hast thou borne for Me?
I’ve borne, I’ve borne it all for thee, what hast thou borne for Me?

And I have brought to thee, down from My home above,
Salvation full and free, My pardon and My love;
I bring, I bring rich gifts to thee, what hast thou brought to Me?
I bring, I bring rich gifts to thee, what hast thou brought to Me?

    This hymn was recast in 1871 in Church Hymns, under the title “Thy Life Was Given for Me”: