Jesus Loves the Little Children
There's a fascinating story behind this favourite children's church song - including the Civil War and a minister who was also a slight-of-hand magician. Did you know there are also three verses to this song? Learn all about it in this episode.
Welcome back to Friday Classic Hymns. We take some classic old hymns, we explore the history and take a look at the lyrics, and then sing them together!
As many of you know, our twins were born at the end of January 2026. At the time of recording this, they've just arrived home a few days back after being in the NICU, getting their strength. They were extremely prem, so they needed a bit of help, but they're home now, and Shereen and I are trying to find out how to do life with them. It's been really hard, but it's been really great.
I've been singing a lot to them - I did in the NICU, and I've been doing it here as well. One of the songs I inevitably start to sing to them is "Jesus Loves the Little Children."
I wonder if you know this one? I feel like everybody who's ever been to a Sunday school or church knows the song! Please share your memories of the song in the comments below - where you remember singing it, or having it sung to you. I'd love to read them and to share in your memories.
Just a reminder to please subscribe to the channel and share this video with someone you know. I'd love for these videos to reach a lot more people. So many people out there love the hymns, and maybe if you share it, it would reach somebody who needs to hear this message today.
The Story Behind "Jesus Loves the Little Children"
An interesting man is behind the song: Clarence Herbert Woolston. Born in 1856 in New Jersey, he entered the ministry in the 1870s under the influence of the great evangelist H. G. DeWitt, and he was ordained a Baptist minister in 1880. He served various congregations in the States until 1887, when he began at the East Baptist Church in Philadelphia and stayed there for 40 years. How about that?
But instead of just being a conventional preacher, Woolston had a particular gift for speaking to children. In fact, he was quite the innovator and ahead of his time, perhaps, in terms of children's ministry.
For one thing, he was a sleight-of-hand magician, and he would use these illusions to teach object lessons to the children. He would do interesting things like bring live animals into his children's lessons just to keep them engaged. In 1912 he founded the Gospel Illustrators Convention, and by 1919 this was a countrywide thing in the States, and he was the president. People knew him for his marvellous skill in illustrations and object lessons, especially in a way that connected with the children.
It's no surprise, then, that he wrote one of the great children's songs. "Jesus Loves the Little Children" was actually a three-verse song, with the famous part that we know as the chorus or the refrain. I didn't know that! A few years after it was published, most publishers started to drop the three verses and just publish the chorus - which I guess is why most of us don't know the verses, although I'll share them with you in a moment.
Maybe part of the success of the song was its pairing with a very singable tune. The tune actually came from the Civil War. It was written in 1864 by George Frederick Root, and originally it was "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching." It seems that the seminary where Woolston studied was actually a hospital at one point in the war for Union soldiers, and so perhaps that's where he got to know the tune and figured it would work well with this song he'd written for the kids.
This is probably the second most popular children's song in all of the church, the first of course being "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know" - which I have done an episode of Friday Classic Hymns on. I hope you can watch that one as well, there’s an interesting story behind that song.
Woolston is said to have spoken to over a million children in his ministry! Amazing. He really was ahead of his time for this type of ministry.
In 1927, Woolston had been the minister at his church for 40 years, and so his church held a celebration to thank him for his faithful ministry in that time. But sadly, a few weeks later he suffered a stroke, and after a few months of declining health, he died at the age of 71.
But his legacy was such a great legacy - not only in his church, but to all the children he had really helped over the years with his lessons and his ministry.
Now let's take a look at the words that he wrote, and the three interesting verses that I'm betting you probably don't know, surrounding this chorus.
What Do the Lyrics of "Jesus Loves the Little Children" Mean?
Verse 1
Jesus calls the children dear,
"Come to Me and never fear,
For I love the little children of the world;
This is a great picture of Jesus actually summoning the children to Himself and saying to them, don't fear. He says it - Jesus loves the little children, therefore our children must know the love of God.
I will take you by the hand,
Lead you to the better land.
For I love the little children of the world."
A picture of Jesus holding the hands of our children and guiding them into a better land, His kingdom. The way of love that He brought to the world - He loves us, and so He draws us, even our children, into this kingdom.
Verse 2
Jesus is the Shepherd true,
And He'll always stand by you,
For He loves the little children of the world;
What a beautiful picture of Jesus as the Shepherd, standing by His little lambs - the children. It's the lambs that He cares for. And I wonder if you've considered Jesus as the shepherd of children. We love to think of Him as our shepherd, and we reflect on the words He speaks in John 10, and the great words of Psalm 23 about Jesus as a shepherd. But think of it in terms of our children - how He shepherds them, how He cares for them and tends to them. Jesus, the shepherd of our children. Let that just sink into your heart.
He'll always stand by you.
For the child, isn't this a beautiful picture - that Jesus will stand by you, that you've got a great friend who is with you and living in your heart? I can imagine this being a powerful thing to teach the children, not just the chorus, but words like these as well.
He's a Saviour great and strong,
And He'll shield you from the wrong.
For He loves the little children of the world.
For children who need somebody strong, somebody powerful in their lives - somebody greater than their own parents, who are just flawed - but somebody who they can always rely on to be full of love and faithfulness. He's a Saviour, great and strong. The Lord is strong and mighty in battle, and even for our little ones, He can be their Saviour and He can bring His strength into their lives in a beautiful way.
He'll shield you from the wrong makes me think of Psalm 91:4, which speaks of how He protects us. How many parents pray for the protection of their children? Maybe this is more for the parents than the children, assuring us that He does care and that He will always be with them.
Verse 3
I am coming, Lord, to Thee,
And Thy soldier I will be,
For He loves the little children of the world;
There's a change here - this becomes a first-person thing. Instead of referring to Jesus, now it's somebody speaking to Him. So now we're calling our children to see themselves as in the Lord's army. We used to sing a song at Sunday school that said: I'm in the Lord's army - I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery, I may never zoom over the enemy, but I'm in the Lord's army. I think that was it. As a kid, this type of imagery is quite helpful - it was, for me at least.
This is a chance for our children to sing: I'm coming to God, and I will live for Him, for He loves the little children of the world.
And His cross I'll always bear,
And for Him I'll do and dare,
For He loves the little children of the world.
We want to raise children who are passionate about Jesus, who will do for Him and dare for Him, and understand the life that He calls them to. Isn't this a great song to teach our little ones?
The Chorus / Refrain
Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world;
This is the part that everybody knows. In my tradition - the Wesleyan theological side of the church - we talk a lot about prevenient grace: the grace that precedes your understanding, the fact that even though you don't understand yet, God is still working in your life, drawing you to Himself. We believe that little children, though they don't understand God yet - at least in an intellectual sense - God is still drawing near to them. He loves them, and He is already at work in their lives to reveal Himself to them.
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in His sight,
Now, at the time this was very inclusive. In the early 1900s, the world was still pretty segregated, and for a man like this to have written about all these different colours was quite a powerful thing. "Red" being Native American, "yellow" being Asian, "black" being the African American people that he knew, and "white" being the Caucasian or European people. For the time, the fact that he introduced all of these different colours - races that God loves equally and who are precious in His sight - this must have been quite radical, because at that time, especially in America, there was still a lot of racial tension.
But some people still feel that this is exclusive - that there's no brown skin in there. There's black, white, red, and yellow, but there's no brown. Some people, I believe, sing it as "red and yellow, black, brown, white" - so that little children in countries with different skin colours and different races might still be able to sing this and know themselves loved. The point is what he was trying to say: any child, whatever skin colour, is precious in the sight of God. And I think that's so true.
Shereen and I spent three weeks going into that hospital every day and seeing all these babies - babies of different colours, all of them beautiful, and none more remarkable than another. None was different to another. They all just needed care from loving parents. So I kept singing this song in that NICU, realising that every child, whoever they are, is precious in the eyes of the Lord. Forgive us, Lord, when we don't see it that way.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
Reminding us throughout the song that Jesus loves all the children and He summons them to Himself.
Conclusion
What do you think? Are there any lines there that took you by surprise in the verses, or anything that made you think? Please share in the comments what you think of these lyrics, and if there's anything that really touched your heart.
Thank you for your support as I do this ministry. Your support that comes in on Patreon and on PayPal really helps me and my family, especially in this season with our little ones. Feel free to go and check that out via the links in the description of the video.
By the way, if you like the feel of the way I do things here, why don't you have a look at my daily devotions - audio devotions and some of my sermons and things like that. I'd love for you to be blessed by those.
Let's just thank God for the way that He loves us, and be reminded that we are, I suppose, just little children held by Him.
References
UMC Discipleship Ministries - History of Hymns: "Jesus Loves the Little Children"
Woolston, C. H. - Seeing Truth, Foreword by Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D.
Woolston, C. H. - The Bible Object Book, Foreword by Homer Rodeheaver
