Heaven bids thee come, while yet there's room,
Child of sin and sorrow, hear and obey.
Words and music by Thomas Hastings.
“LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT.”
John Henry Newman, born in London, Feb. 21, 1801—known in religious history as Cardinal Newman—wrote this hymn when he was a young clergyman of the Church of England. “Born 268 / 224 within the sound of Bow bells,” says Dr. Benson, “he was an imaginative boy, and so superstitious, that he used constantly to cross himself when going into the dark.” Intelligent students of the fine hymn will note this habit of its author's mind—and surmise its influence on his religious musings.
The agitations during the High Church movement, and the persuasions of Hurrell Froude, a Romanist friend, while he was a tutor at Oxford, gradually weakened his Protestant faith, and in his unrest he travelled to the Mediterranean coast, crossed to Sicily, where he fell violently ill, and after his recovery waited three weeks in Palermo for a return boat. On his trip to Marseilles he wrote the hymn—with no thought that it would ever be called a hymn.
When complimented on the beautiful production after it became famous he modestly said, “It was not the hymn but the tune that has gained the popularity. The tune is Dykes' and Dr. Dykes is a great master.”
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Dr. Newman was created a Cardinal of the Church of Rome in the Catholic Cathedral of London, 1879. Died Aug. 11, 1890.