243. His Eye Is on the Sparrow

The Story Behind the Hymn

In the spring of 1905, Civilla Martin and her husband were staying in Elmira, New York, where they grew close to a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle. Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden for nearly twenty years, and her husband, himself severely disabled, had to propel his own wheelchair to and from his work each day. Despite this, the Doolittles were known for the quiet, cheerful faith they brought to everyone who visited them.

When Civilla Martin asked Mrs. Doolittle the secret of her constant hopefulness, the answer came without hesitation: "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me." Struck by the phrase, Martin wrote the hymn text soon afterward, drawing further on Jesus' own words in Matthew 6 and Matthew 10 about God's care even for sparrows sold two for a penny.

The finished text went to Charles H. Gabriel, one of the most prolific gospel song composers of the era, who set it to music that same year for Revival Hymns, published by the Bible Institute in Chicago. In an odd twist of hymn-history bookkeeping, that first printing credited both words and music to Gabriel alone — Martin's authorship of the text was only properly restored in later songbook printings.

Born from the testimony of a bedridden woman few outside her own circle would ever have heard of, "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" went on to become one of the most recorded gospel songs of the twentieth century, carried far beyond its original hymnal pages by singers from Mahalia Jackson to Ethel Waters, its central claim — that God's attention extends even to the smallest, most overlooked creature — proving as durable outside the church as within it.