The young Anglican layman William Chatterton Dix (1837–1898), an insurance salesman, was ill on Epiphany 1859 and could not attend services. On his sickbed he wrote #52 As with gladness men of old. He calls us to imitate the Wise Men, seeking Jesus and offering Him our treasures. Dix uses a concept unfamiliar to Western Christians, but prominent in the Eastern Church: uncreated light. In this life we have a created star to guide us, but it guides us to “the country bright” where we see the uncreated light of God Himself. “The city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it.” (Rev 21:23-24).
For those interested in the Eastern doctrine of teh Uncreated Light, see Solrunn Nes’s Uncreated Light.
