Lyrics
Of Jesus' love that sought me, when I was lost in sin;
Of wondrous grace that brought me back to His fold again;
Of heights and depths of mercy, far deeper than the sea,
And higher than the heavens, my theme shall ever be.
Sweeter as the years go by,
Sweeter as the years go by,
Richer, fuller, deeper, Jesus' love is sweeter,
Sweeter as the years go by.
He trod in old Judea life's pathway long ago;
The people thronged about Him, His saving grace to know;
He healed the brokenhearted, and caused the blind to see;
And still His great heart yearneth in love for even me.
'Twas wondrous love which led Him for us to suffer loss,
To bear without a murmur the anguish of the cross;
With saints redeemed in glory, let us our voices raise,
Till Heav'n and earth re-echo with our Redeemer's praise.
Public domain hymn text and tune (published 1912).
The Story Behind the Hymn
Lelia N. Morris wrote both the words and music of "Sweeter as the Years Go By" in 1912. Born in Pennsville, Ohio, in 1862, Morris was deeply involved with her husband Charles in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the two were regular fixtures at camp meetings in Sebring and Mt. Vernon, Ohio — the setting where much of her hymn writing was tested and shared.
Morris composed largely while doing housework, fitting hymn writing around the ordinary demands of running a household. At age fifty-two, she became blind, a circumstance that might have ended her songwriting career entirely. Instead, her family built her a twenty-eight-foot blackboard, large enough that she could continue to write out music and lyrics by feel and memory even without her sight. Working under that constraint, she went on to write roughly a thousand hymn texts and numerous tunes over her lifetime.
The hymn itself takes up a theme distinct from many gospel songs of its era: rather than a single moment of conversion or crisis, it describes love that deepens with time. Each stanza widens the lens — from personal rescue, to Christ's earthly ministry among the crowds of Judea, to the cross itself — while the refrain returns each time to the same simple claim, that this love only grows richer the longer one lives with it.
Given how much of Morris's own hymn-writing life took place after she lost her sight, working out melodies and words on a blackboard built for exactly that purpose, the hymn's central claim reads as more than a sentiment — it reads as something she continued to test against her own experience, year after year.
