He thought he was dying. John Henry Neuman (1801-1890) was a young Anglican priest struck down with a horrible fever far from home. He wrote, “I sat down on my bed and began to weep bitterly.” His assistant, acting as nurse, asked what was wrong. “I have work to do in England,” was his only response. He boarded a cargo ship carrying oranges that subsequently became stranded in a dense fog on the Mediterranean Sea. John was lying on the deck in the evening, looking at a distant lighthouse as words began to form in his head. Despite his miserable condition, he composed a poem, “The Pillar of the Cloud” based on Exodus 13.21-22, “The Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to give them light.”
John recovered, made it home safely to England and became an influential priest in both Anglican and Catholic churches. His poem was later published, set to music, and became the popular hymn “Lead Kindly Light.” In the first stanza, he asked God’s kindly light to rescue him from the “encircling gloom” and guide him home. He expressed remorse in the second stanza for his proud and willful attitude in the past. In the final stanza, he reaffirmed his trust in God to “lead him on,” home to England and home with God for eternity.
The hymn was sung by a well-known soloist aboard the Titanic prior to its fatal sinking. Thirty-four surviving coal miners stranded deep in a shaft after a mining disaster in 1909 sang it as they sat in total darkness waiting for rescue. It was also sung by Corrie Ten Boom’s sister, Betsie, on her way to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and by British soldiers during WWI on the eve of a climactic battle. It’s a prayer for God’s light to lead us home: