Jesu, lover of my soul 

 Charles Wesley (1707-1788) wrote this hymn soon after his 1738 conversion experience.  The Wesley brothers published it in Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1740, with the title “In Temptation.”  John Wesley left it out of his subsequent hymn collections, possibly, it has been suggested, because he thought the language of the opening lines too intimate for congregational worship.  Later evangelicals like Martin Madan and Augustus Toplady, however, included it in their collections.  The first line may, in fact, have a Biblical source in the deuterocanonical book Wisdom of Solomon 11:26, “But thou sparest all: for they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of souls.”  Certainly the hymn is replete with other Biblical language.  Wesley remembers psalm 107:30 in the storm and the safe haven, and psalm 32:6-7 in the nearer waters and in Jesus as a hiding place from danger.  The “shadow of thy wing” in the last line of stanza two recalls that phrase from many psalms (e.g., 17:8, 36:7, 57:1, 91:4).  The language of the gospel of John (1:14) appears, reversed, in the last line of the third stanza.  And in the imagery of the last stanza, where the waters of death from the opening are transformed into the waters of life, the language is that of John’s account of Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman (4:14).  Wesley wrote the hymn in five stanzas; modern hymnals usually omit his third stanza, and often the fourth as well.  Wesley’s “Jesu” is often changed to “Jesus.”

 

There is no record of a tune paired with Wesley’s words in the 18th century, and early printings are of words only.   John Bacchus Dykes wrote the tune “Hollingside” for Wesley’s words, naming it for his home, Hollingside Cottage, near Durham.  That pairing appeared in the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern. Later, however, the tune widely used has been “Aberystwyth,” by the Welsh composer Joseph Parry (1841-1903).  The tune is named for the Welsh city where Parry was the first Professor of Music in University College (now Aberystwyth University).  The son of a Welsh coal miner, Parry worked in the mines until the family emigrated to Pennsylvania, where he worked in an iron works.  He learned to sight read music from fellow workers (also Welshmen) and then learned principles of harmony from another.  Parry could neither read nor write at the time and so his harmony teacher taught him those skills as well.  At the same time Parry learned to play the harmonium and began to compose.  When he was 22 he sent an anthem to a National Eisteddfod at Llandudno, where it won first prize.  Parry later moved with his young family to England.  He studied at the Royal School of Music and then at Cambridge University, earning a MusB and then a Mus Doc.  Parry composed a large amount of music, but most of it was not commercially successful.  He is best known for the hymn tune “Aberystwyth.