Just As I Am: A Song History

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"Just As I Am" is the work of Charlotte Elliott (1789–1871), an English writer who spent her first three decades mostly in Clapham before settling in Brighton and, after a serious illness in her early thirties, lived much of her life as a semi-invalid.[1][2] The best-known account, preserved on Hymnary.org, places its writing in 1834: confined by illness while those around her were busy preparing a Brighton charity bazaar, she wrestled with doubts about her own usefulness and faith, and answered them by setting down the essentials of what she believed in verse.[1] Sources differ on the year, with others giving 1835, and the same Hymnary notes concede that no printing earlier than 1836 has been traced; the hymn appeared in that year's edition of her Invalid's Hymn Book under a heading from John 6:37, and a further stanza was added the same year in Hours of Sorrow Cheered and Comforted.[1][3] Its plain theme, coming to God without any claim of merit, echoes advice she had earlier received from the Swiss evangelist César Malan.[1][2]

Etching of Christ standing in the centre with the sick, poor and children coming to him from all sides

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Hundred Guilder Print (Christ with the Sick around Him), c. 1649. Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

The melody most often sung with it, WOODWORTH, came later and from another direction. William B. Bradbury (1816–1868) wrote it in 1849 for a different hymn text by Elizabeth Scott, and the long-meter tune was afterward fitted to Elliott's words, with the final short phrase of each verse sung twice.[1][4] The pairing spread widely: Hymnary.org indexes the text in some 2,600 hymnals and the tune in roughly 1,600.[1][4]

In the twentieth century the hymn became inseparable from Billy Graham. He came forward at a 1934 revival in Charlotte, North Carolina, led by Mordecai Ham, and for some six decades choirs at his crusades sang "Just As I Am" during the altar call.[3][5] His music director Cliff Barrows recalled that Graham considered it "the most effective invitation hymn," and Graham borrowed its title for his 1997 autobiography.[5][6] Mountain dulcimer players will find it among the gospel standards in Stephen Seifert's Join the Jam: Gospel Edition.[7]

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Sources

  1. Hymnary.org: text page for Charlotte Elliott's "Just As I Am".
  2. Hymnary.org: "Charlotte Elliott".
  3. Carl F. H. Henry Center, Trinity International University: "Just as I Am: Billy Graham (1918-2018)".
  4. Hymnary.org: "WOODWORTH".
  5. The Billy Graham Library: "25 Years - Just As I Am".
  6. Religion News Service: "'Just As I Am' was Billy Graham's signature hymn".
  7. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam Gospel Edition".