478. He leadeth me, O blessed thought
Joseph H. Gilmore, 1834-1918
A widely used hymn, based on Psalm 23:2: “He leadeth me beside the still waters.” “It has the true hymn quality, combining all the simplicity of spontaneous thought and feeling with perfect accent and liquid rhythm” (Brown and Butterworth).
Joseph Henry Gilmore, a Baptist minister, was born in Boston, the son of Joseph A. Gilmore. He graduated from Brown University in 1858 and from Newton Theological Seminary in 1861. In 1863-64 he served as private secretary to his father, then governor of New Hampshire. From 1865 to 1867, he was pastor of the Second Baptist Church at Rochester, N. Y., and Acting Professor of Hebrew in Rochester Theological Seminary, 1867-68. In 1868, he became Professor of Logic, Rhetoric, and English Literature in the University of Rochester, a position he held for about forty years. One of his published volumes is Outlines of English and American Literature, 1905.
The hymn was written after Dr. Gilmore had conducted the Wednesday evening service at the First Baptist Church, Philadelphia, where he expounded the twenty-third Psalm. After the service, the discussion of the subject was continued in the home where he was stopping. The author says:
During the conversation, the blessedness of God’s leadership so grew upon me that I took out my pencil, wrote the hymn just as it stands today, handed it to my wife, and thought no more about it. She sent it, without my knowledge, to the Watchman and Reflector. Three years later, I went to Rochester to preach for the Second Baptist Church. On entering the chapel, I took up a hymn book, thinking: “I wonder what they sing.” The book opened at “He Leadeth Me,” and that was the first I knew my hymn had found a place among the songs of the Church.
MUSIC. HE LEADETH ME. Finding the hymn in a Christian periodical, Bradbury composed for it this popular tune with which it has since been associated. In singing the tune, holds should be observed at the end of lines 2, 3, and 4 of the stanzas, and at the end of lines 2 and 4 of the refrain. “Few composers have so exactly caught the tone and spirit of their text as Bradbury did when he vocalized the gliding measures of ‘He Leadeth Me.’”
For comments on the composer, Wm. Bradbury, see [Hymn 103].
479. Joys are flowing like a river
M. P. Ferguson