NEARER HOME

One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er:
I am nearer Home today
Than I've ever been before.

Nearer my Father's house
Where many mansions be,
Nearer the great white throne,
Nearer the crystal sea.

Nearer the bounds of life,
Where we lay our burdens down;
Nearer leaving the cross,
Nearer gaining the crown!

But lying darkly between,
Winding a-down through the night,
Is the silent unknown stream
That leads at last to the light.

Father, perfect my trust!
Strengthen my power of faith!
Nor let me stand, at last, alone
Upon the shore of death.

Be near when my feet
Are slipping o'er the brink;
For it may be I am nearer home,
Nearer now than I think.

—Phoebe Cary (1824-1871)

Phoebe Cary said she wrote the above poem in a small third-story bedroom one Sunday morning in 1852 upon her return from church.

It was adapted as a hymn tune by Robert Steel Ambrose (1876) and used by the evangelist Dwight L. Moody and gospel singer Ira D. Sankey (1840-1908) during their British evangelistic tours. Sankey claimed that this song had purifying influences upon listeners. He told the following story.

A gentleman traveling in China found at Macao a company of gamblers in a back room on the upper floor of a hotel. At the table nearest him was an American, about twenty years old, playing with an old man. While the gray-haired man was shuffling the cards, the young man, in a careless way, sang a verse of "One Sweetly Solemn Thought," to a very pathetic tune. Several gamblers looked up in surprise on hearing the singing. The old man, who was dealing the cards, gazed steadfastly at his partner in the game, and then threw the pack of cards under the table.

"Where did you learn that song?" he asked. The young man pretended that he did not know what he had been singing. "Well, no matter" said the old man, "I have played my last game, and that's the end of it. The cards may lie there till doomsday, and I'll never pick them up." Having won a hundred dollars from the young man, he took the money from his pocket and, handing it over the latter, said, "Here, Harry, is your money. Take it and do good with it. I shall with mine."

The traveler followed them downstairs, and at the door heard the old man still talking about the song which the young man had sung. Long afterward a gentleman in Boston received a letter from the old man, in which he declared that he had become a "hard working Christian" and that his young friend also had renounced gambling and kindred vices.

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