J 4 i j m n á y 0 u Xo v e by Phil Kerr "HE LEADETH ME" Words by Joseph H. Gilmore Music by W. B. Bradbury “The hymn was written in the spring of 1862 (March 26), at Phila delphia. I had been talking, at the Wednesday evening lecture of the F i r s t B a p t i s t C h u r c h , about the Twenty-third Psalm, and had been especially impressed with the blessed ness of being led by God. . . . At the close of the service we adjourned to Deacon Wattson’s pleasant home, at which I was stopping, and still held before our minds and hearts the' thought which I had just emphasized. “ During the conversation . . . the blessedness of God’s leadership- so grew upon me that I took o u t .my pencil, wrote the hymn just as it stands today, handed it to my wife, and thought no more of it. She sent it, without my knowledge, to the Watch man and Reflector and there it first appeared in print. “ Three years later I went to Roch ester (N.Y.) to preach for the Second Baptist Church. . . On entering the chapel I took up a hymnbook, think ing T wonder what they sing.’ The book opened at ‘He Leadeth Me’ and that was the first time I knew that my hymn had found a plate among the songs of the church.” William B. Bradbury saw the ori ginal insertion of Gilmore’s poem in the Watchman and Reflector, and composed the musical setting. The song first was published in 1864 in Bradbury’s Golden Censer. Gilmore was bom in Boston, April 29, 1834. He was at various times a Baptist pastor, Hebrew teacher, secre tary to his father (the governor of New Hampshire), and a professor of Hebrew, theology, rhetoric and liter ature at the University of Rochester. He wrote book reviews, published textbooks on various subjects, and wrote a number of hymns. He died in Rochester, July 23, 1918. When the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia (where the song was written) was tom down in 1926 to be replaced by a large office building, a bronze tablet was placed in the new building, containing the first stanza of “He Leadeth Me.” Southern California residents and visitors are reminded of the special MUSICALES directed by Phil Kerr. Every Monday night at 7:30 P.M. in the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, and the second Sunday afternoon of each month in the new auditorium of the BIOLA Campus in La Mirada at 2:30 P.M. Always a rich i n s p i r a t i o n in musical testimony.
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