Henry Kirke White, in 1806, wrote this poem:
When marshal’d on the nightly plain,
The glittering host bestud the sky;
One star alone, of all the train,
Can fix the sinner’s wandering eye.
Hark! hark! to God the chorus breaks,
From every host, from every gem;
But one alone the Saviour speaks,
It is the Star of Bethlehem.
Once on the raging seas I rode,
The storm was loud,—the night was dark,
The ocean yawn’d—and rudely blow’d
The wind that toss’d my foundering bark.
Deep horror then my vitals froze,
Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem;
When suddenly a star arose,
It was the Star of Bethlehem.
It was my guide, my light, my all,
It bade my dark forebodings cease;
And through the storm and dangers’ thrall
It led me to the port of peace.
Now safely moor’d—my peril’s o’er,
I’ll sing, first in night’s diadem,
For ever, and for evermore,
The Star!—The Star of Bethlehem!
This poem, like so many of the hymns of which we know and love from the 16th through 18th century, is not only lyrically beautiful, but, it is theologically correct. What we have in the first two stanzas is an expression of both, faith alone, and Christ alone, viz. that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only object of saving faith. “One star alone, of all the train, Can fix the sinner’s wandering eye.”
In the third stanza we have a very lyrical expression of a tumultuous life of the sinner before regeneration, he is experiencing what is known as the ‘law work’; he is literally aboard a ship on the ocean, being tossed around in the dark. Biblically, the sea generally represents ‘the world’, viz. the non believing gentiles – “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?”, says the Psalmist in Psalm 2. But, our lost heathen in the fourth stanza of the poem, feeling the terror and “death struck” and seeing his need, “suddenly” has the Saviour revealed, “It was the Star of Bethlehem.”
As the Lord is revealed to the sinner by faith alone, our terrified lost sinner in his “foundering” boat upon the dark raging seas of the world has received the object of faith, which is “the Star of Bethlehem”; to which his gaze is fixed. And, in our last two stanzas we witness some of the results of saving faith; namely peace, strength, and eternal assurance. This is truly a beautiful poem.
Scripture Alone 