What is the world? a wildering maze. J. Montgomery. [Holy Scripture a Light.] In his Poetical Works 1851, p. 304, Montgomery dates this hymn “1815": but in his newspaper, the Sheffield Iris, of 1817, he printed it in 3 stanzas of 6 lines, and dated it "February, 1817." Under these circumstances it is difficult to say which of these dates is correct. The hymn was repeated in Montgomery's Greenland and Other Poems, 1819, p. 187; his Christian Psalmist, 1825, No. 548; his Poetical Works, 1828, and his Original Hymns, 1853, No. 26. It is also found in Cotterill’s Selection, 1819, and in several of the older and modern hymnbooks. It is not, however, a good example of Montgomery's powers as a writer of hymns.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >
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