"LEAD KINDLY LIGHT”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20587, 28 November 1936, Page 12 (Supplement)

"LEAD KINDLY LIGHT”

NEWMAN’S FAMOUS HYMN VERSE THAT WAS WITHDRAWN Tn ‘A Tramping Parson’s Message,’ the Rev. Desmond Morse-Boycott makes an interesting reference to Newman’s famous hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light. He writes: “There has been much speculation over Newman’s meaning in the lines: ‘And in the mom those angel faces smile, which I have loved long since and lost awhile.’ Did he mean friends of bygone days? I think not. When the was pressed, in the evening of his days, for an interpretation he answered, rather rightly, that he was ’not bound to remember his own meaning, whatever it was. at the end of almost 50 years,’ but I think the clue is to be found in his “Apologia,” which took England by storm and re-established him in the hearts of his countrymen. There he says of his childhood:

“‘I used to wish the “Arabian Tales" were true; my imagination ran on unknown influences, on magical powers and talismans. ... I thought life might be a dream or I an angel and all this world a deception, my fellow angels, by a playful device, concealing themselves from me. . . .' Added Verse “After Newman had become a Roman Catholic the Rev. Edward Henry Bickersteth, some time vicar of Christchurch, Hamstead, and Bishop of Exeter, who composed ‘Peace. Perfect Peace,’ ventured, as editor of the ‘Hymnal Companion,’ to improve on “Lead, Kindly Light,’ by adding a fourth verse. It ran: “ ‘Meantime along the narrow, rugged path, Thyself hast trod. Lead, Saviour, lead me home in childlike faith. Home to my God. In the calm light of everlasting life. To rest for ever after earthly strife.’

“This verse, to be found in early copies of the ‘Hymnal Companion,’ was expunged as a result of the following letter, written by Newman to the publishers, the original of which (unpublished in any ‘Life’) I found some years ago in an album of old letters. Itself a piece of literature, it runs:— “‘I doubt not I gave leave for my lines, “Lead, Kindly Light,” to be inserted into your collection of hymns —and did so readily—but a stranger has been kind enough to inform me that your compiler has added a verse to it not mine. It is not that the verse is not both in sentiment and language graceful and good, but I think you will at once see how unwilling an author must be to subject himself to the inconvenience of that being ascribed to him which is not his own. “‘I have not seen it myself in the ‘Hymnal Companion,’ but the stanza has been quoted to me. It begins, “Mean, along the narrow, etc.” ‘“John H. Newman.’ “Newman’s long following of the Kindly Light came to an end in 1890," says Mr Morse-Boycott. “He was 90. Who of us cannot be thankful, however we may regard him, or differ from his teaching, for such a beautiful hymn, soothing us in the gloom of sorrow or inspiring us when all is well; teaching us to go ‘step by step’ without impatience and reminding us that life is not a first class journey, though of its ‘patches’ may be upholstered, but a stem and often weary pilgrimage on a way upon which God never fails to cast a sufficient gleam of the Kindly Light to enable us to take the next step forward.” Mr Morse-Boycott's book of addresses is typical of the man and his work among the poor. Many have direct association with the church's year, but the most helpful have reference to Hospital Sunday and services for working men and women.