This world is a wilderness wide

This world is a wilderness wide. John Nelson Darby* (1800-1882). According to Hammond (1883) the manuscript of this hymn was ‘given to a friend at Montpellier, 1849’. It was printed in George Vicesimus Wigram*’s A Few Hymns and some Spiritual Songs, selected 1856, for the Little Flock (1856). It had eight stanzas, and was later entitled ‘The Pilgrim’s Path’ in Darby's Spiritual Songs (1883). The rhythmical assurance of the hymn, and its content, suggest Darby’s belief in the imminent ‘rapture’ of the Second Coming: This world is a wilderness wide, I have nothing to seek or to choose; I’ve no thought in the waste to abide; I have nought to regret nor to lose. The Lord is himself gone before;...