Lyrics
I gave My life for thee,
My precious blood I shed,
That thou mightst ransomed be,
And quickened from the dead;
I gave, I gave My life for thee,
What hast thou done for Me?
My Father's house of light,
My glory-circled throne
I left for earthly night,
For wanderings sad and lone;
I left, I left it all for thee,
Hast thou left aught for Me?
I suffered much for thee,
More than thy tongue can tell,
Of bitterest agony,
To rescue thee from hell;
I've borne, I've borne it all for thee,
What hast thou borne for Me?
And I have brought to thee,
Down from My home above,
Salvation full and free,
My pardon and My love;
I bring, I bring rich gifts to thee,
What hast thou brought to Me?
Public domain hymn text (written 1858, published 1859). Words by Frances Ridley Havergal; commonly set to a tune by Philip P. Bliss.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Frances Ridley Havergal was still in her early twenties, studying in Germany, when she visited an art gallery in Düsseldorf and stopped before a painting known as "Ecce Homo" — Christ presented to the crowd by Pilate, crowned with thorns. Beneath the image ran a Latin inscription that translates roughly to "I did this for thee; what hast thou done for Me?"
Havergal later described how the words of the painting's caption seemed to settle directly on her, the Savior's painted eyes appearing to rest on her own. On January 10, 1858, back home, the lines of a hymn responding to that inscription came to her all at once, and she wrote them down in pencil on a scrap of paper.
She thought so little of what she had written that she nearly burned it — by her own account, she drew the paper back from the fire at the last moment, keeping it afterward crumpled and singed at the edges in her pocket. It was not until the following year, 1859, that she wrote it out properly as a finished hymn text.
Each of its four verses follows the same pattern as the painting's inscription: a statement of what Christ gave, suffered, or brought, closed every time by the same pointed question turned back on the singer — what hast thou done, left, borne, or brought for Me? Few hymns of the era put the question of personal response quite so directly, or so repeatedly, to the person singing it.
