Joseph Henry Gilmore (1834-1918) was a young, newly ordained minister who was asked to substitute for the pastor at a midweek service at First Baptist Church in Philadelphia. The year was 1862, during the darkest days of the Civil War. Joseph intended to preach on all six verses of Psalm 23 but never made it beyond the second verse. He said later, “I did not get further than the words, ‘He leadeth me’—those words took hold of me as they had never done before.” After the service, Joseph and his wife Mary joined Dean Watson for refreshments at his home. Joseph kept thinking about the words, “He leadeth me.” As others were talking, he jotted down the words in a hymn arrangement and handed the paper to his wife, thinking no more about it.
Three years later, Joseph was a pastoral candidate at Second Baptist Church in Rochester, NY. He wrote of that time, “Upon entering the chapel, I took a hymnbook thinking, ‘I wonder what they sing.’ The book opened at the hymn ‘He Leadeth Me.'” While he was delighted to see his hymn in print, he couldn’t recall sharing it with anyone. He told his wife Mary about it when he returned home, and she confessed to sending it to a Boston newspaper under a pseudonym. She was certain the words would bless people in troubled times. Hymn writer William Bradbury read the lyrics in the newspaper, edited the refrain, and set the hymn to music. Like many hymns of that era, it uses repetition to reinforce the theme. “He leadeth me” appears seventeen times in this four-stanza hymn. The words express trust in God’s guidance even in troubled times (“mid scenes of deepest gloom”). The hymn has a prayer-like quality to it. Use it to pray for God’s leading in your life today:
Joseph Gilmore
He leadeth me: O blessed thought! O words with heavenly comfort fraught!
Whate’er I do, where’er I be,
still ‘tis God’s hand that leadeth me.
Refrain:
He leadeth me, he leadeth me;
by his own hand he leadeth me:
his faithful follower I would be,
for by his hand he leadeth me.
Sometimes mid scenes of deepest gloom,
sometimes where Eden’s flowers bloom,
by waters calm, o’er troubled sea,
still ‘tis God’s hand that leadeth me.
Refrain.
Lord, I would clasp thy hand in mine,
nor ever murmur nor repine;
content, whatever lot I see,
since ‘tis my God that leadeth me.
Refrain.
And when my task on earth is done,
when, by thy grace, the victory’s won,
e’en death’s cold wave I will not flee,
since God through Jordan leadeth me.
Refrain.
Michael Hawn, “History of Hymns: He Leadeth Me”
Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.