Joseph M. Scriven was a man familiar with personal tragedy. While in Ireland, his fiancée accidentally drowned on the eve of the wedding. Soon after, he decided to move to Canada. It was there, his second fiancée also died suddenly from an illness shortly before the wedding. With no job in a hard economy, he had to live with friends and acquaintances. In Canada, he was determined to be a friend to those in need, and he became known as the “Good Samaritan of Port Hope.”
Scriven wrote the words for “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” to accompany a letter to his mother in Ireland when she became ill. Later, when Scriven himself became ill, a visiting friend noticed the hymn scribbled on a scratch paper hear his bed. His friend asked, “Did you write this?” “Well, not completely,” Scriven answered, “The Lord and I did it between us.”
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Source: The Complete Book of Hymns