History of Hymns

The history behind "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief": Originally a poem entitled "The Stranger" by James Montgomery, this hymn answers the question posed in Matthew 25:37-39: "Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink?" At the age of 7, James Montgomery was sent to Fulneck Seminary in Yorkshire, England. A few years later his parents left him in the care of the seminary and set off as missionaries to the West Indies. Not long after they had left, his parents met with tragedy and died. We can only imagine how his parents' death affected James. Unfortunately, his scholastic record at Fulneck suffered and in 1787 he began various apprenticeships outside the seminary before becoming an assistant to a Mr. Gales, a printer of the Sheffield Register. Montgomery took over the Sheffield Register, changing its name to the Sheffield Iris, and continued to edit it for 32 years. He wrote 400 hymns, but his best-known hymn is "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief," which has also become a poem. James never married and died quietly in his sleep at age 83. In 1792, a devout Methodist, George Coles wrote the melody of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief," or "Duane Street," as the hymn is also known. Coles came across a copy of James Montgomery's poem and set it to music. "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" is especially loved among Latter-day Saints because of the role it played in the last hours before the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. This program features contemporary renditions of this hymn from such artists as the following: David Tolk's arrangement of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" from his album In Reverence.

Listen to the hymn"A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief"