His Eye Is On The Sparrow

In the spring of 1905, the hymn writer Civilla D. Martin (1866–1948) and her husband were staying in Elmira, New York, where they befriended a couple named the Doolittles. Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden for nearly twenty years; her husband used a wheelchair, yet still ran his business every day. What struck the Martins was that the Doolittles were two of the most hopeful people they had ever met.

One afternoon, as Civilla later told the story, her husband asked the Doolittles the secret of their brightness. Mrs. Doolittle's answer was simple: 'His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.'

The words landed like a gift. 'The hymn was the outcome of that experience,' Civilla wrote, 'singing itself to us that very afternoon in its complete form.' Even the hymn's opening line — 'Why should I feel discouraged?' — is really the Martins' own question, answered from a sickbed.

Mrs. Doolittle was quoting Jesus. In Matthew 10, the Savior taught that though two sparrows sell for a farthing, 'one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father' knowing — 'fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.' The whole hymn is that promise turned into a song: if God notices the smallest bird, He surely notices you.

Civilla sent her words to Charles H. Gabriel, one of the era's great gospel composers, and the finished song was published that same year, 1905. In one of history's small ironies, the earliest printings credited Gabriel alone — Civilla Martin's name had to be added to her own hymn in later editions.

Charles H. Gabriel (1856–1932) grew up on an Iowa farm, taught himself music, and was leading singing schools by age seventeen. He is said to have written thousands of gospel songs, and 1905 was quite a year for him: alongside the tune SPARROW he also wrote 'I Stand Amazed in the Presence' — words and music — and both appeared in the very same songbook.

His melodies became staples of the great revival campaigns of the early twentieth century, sung by crowds of thousands. But none has flown farther than the one he wrote for a homebound woman's testimony.

No one carried this hymn further than Ethel Waters (1896–1977). Born into deep poverty, she rose to become a star of blues, Broadway, and film. 'I was singing that song since I was 8 years old,' she said, and when she starred in The Member of the Wedding in 1950, she insisted the hymn be sung in the play's most tender scene.

She titled her 1951 autobiography His Eye Is on the Sparrow, and after joining a Billy Graham crusade in 1957, she sang the hymn at his gatherings for nearly twenty years. It became a cornerstone of gospel singing: Mahalia Jackson's recording entered the Grammy Hall of Fame, and Whitney Houston's version topped Billboard's gospel chart in 2012.

'His Eye Is on the Sparrow' had never appeared in a Latter-day Saint hymnal — until the Tabernacle Choir sang Mack Wilberg's arrangement in the April 2024 general conference, giving members a preview of what was coming.

Weeks later, on May 30, 2024, it was released as hymn #1005 in the first batch of Hymns—For Home and Church. A hundred and nineteen years after a bedridden woman answered a friend's question, her answer became a hymn for Latter-day Saint children to grow up singing.