Joseph Medlicott Scriven was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1819. He was a good student who attended Trinity College in Dublin at the age of 16. Even though his health was poor, he tried to carry on his family's military tradition in England. He left after 2 years when he was assessed as "physically unfit".
Joseph returned to Dublin and finished college in 1842.
He was engaged to be married in 1843. The day before his wedding, his fiance was thrown from her horse into the river Bann and drowned.
After this tragedy, he took a job as tutor to the Bartley family. While in the Middle East, he wrote the first line of his famous song, which he intended for a poem called "Pray Without Ceasing". When Joseph heard that his mother was ill, he sent her a letter with the poem enclosed. Years later, when Joseph was sick, a visiting friend read some of his poems, including what had become known as "What A Friend We Have In Jesus".
Jospeh left for Canada in 1846, and took a tutor position in 1850 with the Pengelley family. There he met Eliza Roche, and again was engaged to be married. But for the second time, tragedy took his fiance, this time in the form of pneumonia.
He was a member of the Plymouth Brethren, of which George Muller was a member, and began preaching for a Baptist Church. He would preach wherever he could find an audience. Sometimes, he was even greeted by people throwing fruits and vegetables at him, but even when faced with arrest he carried on. It was said that he could quote Scripture for any occassion.
Jospeh spent all that he had to help those who could not help themselves. It was a familiar site in Port Hope, Ontario to see him carrying around a bucksaw. He would cut wood for those who couldn't do it for themselves, or for those who could not pay, but he wouldn't work for money. He would care for the sick. His landlady, an Irish widow,had a cow, which he milked for her and made the deliveries.
Joseph died in 1886 and was buried in the Pengelley family cemetery next to Eliza Roche. His friend published his poems in a book called Hymns and Other Verses. Charles C. Converse, a well known musician of the time, put it to music, and it was included in Ira Sankey's gospel hymns.
In 1920, the people of Port Hope erected a monument to Joseph with the words of his poem-turned-song written on the four sides.
