Lead Kindly Light

I just want to share these words from John H. Newman, the author who wrote the lyrics to my favorite hymn:

“Before start­ing from my inn, I sat down on my bed and began to sob bit­ter­ly. My ser­vant, who had act­ed as my nurse, asked what ailed me. I could only an­swer, “I have a work to do in En­gland.” I was ach­ing to get home, yet for want of a ves­sel I was kept at Pa­ler­mo for three weeks. I began to vis­it the church­es, and they calmed my im­pa­tience, though I did not at­tend any ser­vices. At last I got off in an orange boat, bound for Mar­seilles. We were be­calmed for whole week in the Straits of Bon­i­fa­cio, and it was there that I wrote the lines, “Lead, Kind­ly Light,” which have since be­come so well known.” – John Henry Newman

Brother Newman had spent so much of his life traveling and trying to mend relations between the Anglican and Catholic Church. The year was about 1833 and he felt that he must get to England to preach the gospel and save the Church. It was then that he became so terribly ill that he wept. His body was very weak and he needed a ship in order to travel from Italy to England. Everything seemed to be going wrong and he could not understand why God would not hearken unto his prayer, heal him and provide a vessel so that he could travel to England and save the Church.

He laid his body down, wept and wrote, “Lead Kindly Light”.

In the year 1830, across the Atlantic Ocean, in America, a group of six men had organized a new Church. By 1837, missionaries from that church boarded a ship bound for England.

Newman never learned why the Lord did not send a ship to carry him to England, yet he felt a strange sense of calmness and peace as he wrote this hymn:

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/l/e/a/leadkind.htm