Music by John B. Sumner, 1878 (1838-1918)

My Father is rich in houses and lands,

He holdeth the wealth of the world in His hands!

Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold,

His coffers are full, He has riches untold.

Refrain

I'm a child of the King,

A child of the King:

With Jesus my Savior,

I'm a child of the King.

My Father's own Son, the Savior of men,

Once wandered on earth as the poorest of them;

But now He is pleading our pardon on high,

That we may be His when He comes by and by.

Refrain

I'm a child of the King,

A child of the King:

With Jesus my Savior,

I'm a child of the King.

I once was an outcast stranger on earth,

A sinner by choice, an alien by birth,

But I've been adopted, my name's written down,

An heir to a mansion, a robe and a crown.

Refrain

I'm a child of the King,

A child of the King:

With Jesus my Savior,

I'm a child of the King.

A tent or a cottage, why should I care?

They're building a palace for me over there;

Though exiled from home, yet still may I sing:

All glory to God, I'm a child of the King.

Refrain

I'm a child of the King,

A child of the King:

With Jesus my Savior,

I'm a child of the King.

Hattie Eugenia Paeck Buell, who attended the Methodist Episcopal Church at Thousand Island Park, New York, about 1876, while walking home one day was meditating on the joy of being a child of the King of kings. On reaching home, she sat down and wrote the words of this gospel song, not really intending them as a hymn. She sent the words as a poem to the Northern Christian Advocate magazine, and it was printed in February 1877.

John B. Sumner, a Methodist Episcopal minister, saw the poem in the magazine and composed the tune in the autumn of 1878 with Buell's knowledge. A few months later she heard the song sung by a solosit in the Manluis Methodist Church! Buell's original words were "I'm the child of a King," but the first publishers took the liberty of interchanging the two words to make it read "I'm a child of the King." The tune is sometimes called BINGHAMPTON after the town where the composer was then living.