“No Dis­tant Lord Have I” was writ­ten as a ve­ry per­son­al an in­tim­ate ex­press­ion of Dr. Bab­cock’s de­vo­tion to Je­sus Christ, his un­fail­ing Friend and Sav­iour. That the po­em, or parts of it, would ev­er be used as a hymn prob­ab­ly ne­ver en­tered his mind. How­ev­er, three stan­zas of the po­em were first set to mu­sic in 1927 and in­cor­po­rat­ed in “The Church School Hymn­al for Youth” in 1928, in the sect­ion deal­ing with the spir­it­u­al pre­sence of Christ.