Father! Lead Me Out of Darkness
By John A. Widtsoe
Father! lead me out of darkness by the Gospel’s holy call.
Lead me into life eternal – grant me ready strength for all:
Sinful longing and life’s trial, may they meet an armored heart;
Let Thy promise rest upon me, so that mine, the better part.
Father! blinded by the earth-light, do I cry for higher aid.
All I know that Thou art Father, in Thy hand my life is laid.
Greater light I seek, my Father, in the man-made chaos here.
I will meet the heat of battle, but, oh, Father, be Thou near.
Father! bless Thy drifting children, they who see not with their eyes;
They who seek for truth unchanging, pass the source, yet do despise;
May all evil, fiercely raging, lose its boasted pow’r on earth;
That the creature rise not higher than the God who gave it birth.
Father! all my heart I give Thee; all my service shall be Thine.
Guide me as I search in weakness, let Thy living light be mine.
Hear me as I pray in meekness, let my strength be as the day.
Give me faith: the greater knowledge, Father! bless me as I pray.
(1932)
Interesting. Most of that appears in our hymnals as “Lead Me Into Life Eternal”–the last two verses of the hymn are identical to the last stanza of the poem. But the first verse of the hymn takes pieces from other lines of the poem and rearranges them.
Elder Widtsoe was a favorite of my father’s–when Elder Widtsoe would visit my grandfather, a stake president in Arizona and a scientist, the two would have conversations late into the night on a whole range of subjects, and my dad would hang around as long as he could so he could listen in.
My dad commented once on that last line: Give me faith, the greater knowledge–science and religion in their proper order, in one quick phrase!
I will print this out and put it by my bedside.There is a shadow of the hymn on p. 220 Lord, I Would Follow Thee – but there is an extra line in the above poem and it doesn’t fit completely.
Does anyone know the original tune that this hymn was sung to, before it was changed for the 1948 hymnal?