Here We are but Straying Pilgrims

"Here We Are But Straying Pilgrims"

Hebrews 11:13 "These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted
them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth."

Hebrews 11:39-40 "And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 
since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect."

Psalms 39:12 “Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears!
For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers."  

A song in which we make a confession that we are strangers and pilgrims on this earth is "Here We Are But Straying Pilgrims"
(#213 in Hymns for Worship Revised and #401 in Sacred Selections for the Church). The text was written by
Isaac Newton Carman, who was born sometime around 1830. Very little information is available regarding him.
It is known that he studied at Bethany College in Bethany, VA (now WV) under Alexander Campbell. For a time he was
a minister among Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, but he apparently left the church sometime in the 1850’s.
Nothing definite known about the circumstances surrounding the origin of this hymn. The song is believed to have
been produced around 1854, but the first record of its being published was in the 1863 songbook The Polyphonic
edited by A. D. and C. L. Fillmore, printed at Cincinnati, OH, by R. W. Carroll and Co. Two years later, it was
included in the Christian Hymn Book, edited by a committee appointed by the American Christian Missionary Society,
and continued to be used in succeeding editions down to the last Society book, The Christian Hymnal Revised, in 1882,
where it was called "Here and Yonder."
The tune (Perkins or Straying Pilgrims) was composed by William Oscar Perkins (1831-1902). He is perhaps
best known for the melody that accompanies the song, "Did You Think To Pray?" Carman died in 1911. It is
reported that Moses Lard called "Here We Are But Straying Pilgrims" a "silly Jim-Crow lay," but it has been
fairly popular among churches of Christ since being reintroduced in the 1937 Great Songs of the Church No. 2,
edited by Elmer Leon Jorgenson (1886-1968). Originally, the stanzas were to be sung in unison, but an arrangement
of them for full four-part harmony was made in 1959 for Sacred Selections by the editor, Ellis J. Crum.
(https://hymnstudiesblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/quothere-we-are-but-straying-pilgrimsquot/)

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I want to share my love for Jesus with anyone and everyone!
I hope that if you know this classic hymn that you sing along with me so we can praise Him together!

~Kelly Jeanne
2Corinthians 4:5 "For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake."