f
Hath often crossed me on my way,
Who sued so humbly for relief
That I could never answer nay.
I had no power to ask his name,
Whither he went or whence he came,
Yet there was something in his eye
That won my love, I knew not why;

--and in the second and third stanzas the narrator relates how he
entertained him, and this was the sequel--

Then in a moment to my view
The stranger started from disguise
The token in His hand I knew;
My Saviour stood before my eyes.

When once that song was started, every tongue took it up, (and it was
strange if every foot did not count the measure,) and the coldest
kindled with gospel warmth as the story swept on.[26]

[Footnote 26: Montgomery's poem, "The Stranger," has seven stanzas. The
full dramatic effect of their connection could only be produced by a set
piece.]

"WHEN FOR ETERNAL WORLDS I STEER."

It was no solitary experience for hearers in a house of prayer where the
famous Elder Swan held the pulpit, to feel a climactic thrill at the
sudden breaking out of the eccentric orator with this song in the very
middle of his sermon--

When for eternal worlds I steer,
And seas are calm and skies are clear,
And faith in lively exercise,
And distant hills of Canaan rise,
My soul for joy then claps her wings,
And loud her lovely sonnet sings,
"Vain world, adieu!"

With cheerful hope her eyes explore
Each landmark on the distant shore,
The trees of life, the pastures green,
The golden streets, the crystal stream,
Again for joy, she claps her wings,
And loud her lovely sonnet sings,
"Vain world, adieu!"

Elder Jabez Swan was born in Stonington, Ct., Feb. 23, 1800, and died
1884. He was a tireless worker as a pastor (long in New London, Ct.,)
and a still harder toiler in the field as an evangelist and as a helper
eagerly called for in revivals; and, through all, he was as happy as a
boy in vacation. He was unlearned in the technics of the schools, but
always eloquent and armed with ready wit; unpolished, but poetical as a
Hebrew prophet and as terrible in his treatment of sin. Scoffers and
"hoodlums" who interrupted him in his meetings never interrupted him but
once.

[Illustration: James Montgomery]

The more important and canonical hymnals and praise-books had no place
for "Sonnet," as the bugle-like air to this hymn was called. Rev.
Jonathan Aldrich