“I'M BUT A STRANGER HERE.”
The simple beauty of this hymn, and the sympathetic sweetness of its tune made children love to sing it, and it found its way into a few Sunday-school collections, though not composed for such use.
A young Congregational minister. Rev. Thomas Rawson Taylor, wrote it on the approach of his early end. He was born at Osset, near Wakefield, Yorkshire, Eng., May 9, 1807, and studied in Bradford, where his father had taken charge of a large church, and at Manchester Academy and Airesdale College. Sensible of a growing ailment that might shorten his days, he hastened to the work on which his heart was set, preaching in surrounding towns and villages while a student, and finally quitting college to be ordained to his sacred profession. He was installed as pastor of Howard St. Chapel, Sheffield, July, 1830, when 349 / 301 only twenty-three. But in less than three years his strength failed, and he went back to Bradford, where he occasionally preached for his father, when able to do so, during his last days. He died there March 15, 1835. Taylor was a brave and lovely Christian—and his hymn is as sweet as his life.
I'm but a stranger here,
Heaven is my home;
Earth is a desert drear,
Heaven is my home.
Dangers and sorrows stand
Round me on every hand;
Heaven is my Fatherland—
Heaven is my home.
What though the tempest rage,
Heaven is my home;
Short is my pilgrimage,
Heaven is my home.
And time's wild, wintry blast
Soon will be overpast;
I shall reach home at last—
Heaven is my home.
[In his last attempt to preach], young Taylor uttered the words, “I want to die like a soldier, sword in hand.” On the evening of the same Sabbath day he breathed his last. His words were memorable, and Montgomery, who loved and admired the man, made them the text of a poem, part of which is the familiar hymn “Servant of God, well done."*
* See [page 498]