Guide me, O my great Redeemer

With its roots in the people of both Wales and Israel and their respective songs, while stopping short of the promised land, this classic hymn is about much more than guidance. But it begins ‘Guide …’, and opens a new, brief but rich section (8k) on ‘Guidance’. We have today to make the effort to value and savour the words, and their debt to three languages, independently of the music, which came only much later. The 5 stzs of Arglwydd, arwain trwy’r anialwch were headed ‘Strength to pass through the Wilderness’, and many books follow Julian in giving 1744/5 as the date of their first publication (in Bristol, England!) in Halleluia, edited by their author William Williams, Pantycelyn. The Companion to Rejoice and Sing (1999) modifies this, saying that it was a 1762 ‘continuation’ of that book which first featured this text. The first known English version was Peter Williams’ rendering of stzs 1, 3 and 5 in his Hymns on Various Subjects in 1771 (Carmarthen, this time). That same year either the original author or his son John added the first of these paraphrased verses to 2 more of his own translating in The Collection of Hymns sung in the Countess of Huntingdon’s Chapels in Sussex. With further amendments the same basic text appeared several times in leaflet and book form in the decade following. The rich biblical imagery, largely derived from Exodus, Numbers and Psalms, has helped to establish the text as one of the best-known of hymns in either Welsh or English—and, it is said, some 75 other tongues world-wide, though few are based on the original language. In 1988 Alan Gaunt made a much closer English version of all 5 stzs, Lead me, God, across the desert; also extant are texts beginning ‘Guide us…’ and using plural mode throughout, as in Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody, 1841.

In the more familiar text, however, we should not miss the briefer allusions to John 6:32, Jeremiah 50:34, or Job 28:22. Since so many changes have been made, it is impossible to claim any text as ‘standard’. But the main differences needing to be noted here are in line 1, formerly ‘… O thou great Jehovah’ (already widely altered); 1.6(-7) was ‘… till I want no more’ (which meant ‘need/lack’, as in Psalm 23.1 AV, and see notes to 590); 2.2 (from ‘… stream doth flow’) and 2.6 (‘be thou still …’). The resulting modified text is
the same as that in HTC.

So we come to the tune, not yet half the age of the text. In hymn-books, CWM RHONDDA is usually reserved for these words, though a great many others have been fitted to it, from sacred verse (old or new) to the impromptu chants from football crowds. Its name (originally just RHONDDA) means ‘Rhondda valley’. It was composed by John Hughes one Sunday morning in 1907, at Salem Chapel in Pontypridd, Glam, for the annual Baptist singing festival (Cymanfa Ganu) to be held at Rhondda Chapel, Trehopcyn, Pontypridd. It was printed in leaflet form for that occasion, and in spite of being sung at a further estimated 5000 such events by 1930, whether for musical or copyright reasons it did not reach any UK hymnal until it was given as an option in the 1933 Methodist Hymn Book. By the 1950s it was making its way into other main books, more successfully in England
than in Wales. For further information and assessment, see especially A Luff, Welsh Hymns and their Tunes (1990), pp223–4, and the same author in Jubilate, Amen! (2010), pp261-6; F Colquhoun, Hymns that Live (1980), pp191–8; and the contrasting companions to CH and Rejoice and Sing.

Even with this hymn, however, and even in the late 20th c, it is rarely safe to call a tune ‘inseparable’ from its text. At least as alternatives, the 1950 and 1983 A&Ms print George J Elvey’s PILGRIMAGE, while HTC includes Owen’s BRYN CALFARIA (666).

b Llansadyrnin (Llansadurnin), nr St Clears, Carmarthen 1721/22, d Llandyfeilog (Llandyfaelog), nr Kidwelly, Carmarthen 1796. Carmarthen Grammar Sch, Carmarthen Coll. Warned by a tutor against the preaching of George Whitefield, he went to hear him and was converted. He was ordained (Welsh Anglican) 1744 and served as curate in Eglwys Cymmyn (Gymyn) on the coast near his home, where he also opened a school. After 2 years, unpopular with the church establishment on account of his evangelical fervour, he became an itinerant preacher with the Calvinistic Methodists. During the revival years he proved an outstanding leader, but on being dismissed for heresy he built a chapel at Water St, Carmarthen, on some town land of his own. In 1759 he published a Welsh hymn-book Rhai Hymnau ac Odlau Ysbrydol; then Hymns on Various Subjects in 1771. He also compiled an annotated Welsh family Bible (1767–70) and Concordance (1773). Sadly, he is one of many Welsh writers whose work is known in English ‘only through wretched translations from which all the poetry has evaporated’. It was the 1771 collection which included his own part-translation of William Williams’ (Pantycelyn) best-known hymn, for the first stz of which he himself is now best-known beyond Wales; see notes. No.868*.

(known familiarly as ‘Billy’), b Llanfair-ar-y-Bryn, nr Llandovery, Carmarthen, S Wales 1717, d Pantycelyn nr Llandovery, Carmarthenshire 1791. Born into a farming household which was soon fatherless, he grew up at an inherited farm at Pantycelyn which became the family home and later, his identifying name in the Welsh tradition. In the poetry of R S Thomas ‘Singing Pantycelyn’ means ‘Singing the hymns of William Williams’ (as in Border Blues c1958). The family attended the Cefnarthen chapel before transferring to an independent Calvinist group. In 1737 he came to the Llwyn-llwyd Dissenting Academy at Chancefield, intending to become a doctor. His medical studies were broken off after 1738 when he heard Howell Harris preach in the nearby Talgarth churchyard; he became a believer, and soon sensed the call of God to Christian service. He was ordained at Abergwili as an Anglican in 1740 and for 3 years ministered with growing unease as a curate at Llanwrtyd near his home. His vicar was a bitter opponent of this new ‘Methodism’. In 1742–3 he was charged with various technical offences against church law and refused full ordination (as presbyter) by an unsympathetic bishop. This was a clear signal for him to join the Calvinistic Methodists, and after a period of teaching at Llansawel to begin a 50-year evangelical ministry which covered well over 100,000 miles, mainly on horseback, and in fellowship with Harris and Daniel Rowland of Llangeitho. But first he married the gifted and musical Mary Francis; the newlyweds settled into Pantycelyn and the pioneering Mary taught him the blessings of tea. He became an enthusiast for this rapidly growing product, buying it by the chestful to use or sell to friends. His hymnwriting may have been prompted by a copy of George Wither’s 1641 book, but according to Thos Charles, it began at Harris’s suggestion in 1743 Members of a small praying group were urged to compose some verses, since Wales needed a Charles Wesley of its own. Williams’ contribution was so well-received that he was urged to write more. But this story ‘is shot through with problems’—Alan Luff. At any rate, from 1744–47 WW’s 6-part collection Hallelujah was issued in Bristol, to be followed by others including Hosannah to the Son of David, or Hymns of Praise to God (1751–54), Gloria in Excelsis, or Hymns of Praise to God and the Lamb (with prayers, poems and further Welsh hymns, 1772), and The Songs of those upon the Sea of Glass: a book ‘which seemed able to produce a revival wherever it was introduced’—AL. Many lines came to him at night; he always went to bed well-prepared with writing materials to hand.

In all he wrote some 850 hymns, most in Welsh. In 1811, some time after his death, his son John published a complete collection. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said in 1968 that Williams combined the merits of Watts and Wesley; ‘that is why I put him in a category entirely on his own’. Faith Cook calls him the ‘poet of the revival’; in Our Hymn Writers and their Hymns (2005) she provides further details including his 4 guidelines for hymnwriters (p133–4). He is widely celebrated as ‘the sweet singer of Wales’. Williams has more references than anyone else in Alan Luff’s Welsh Hymns and their Tunes (1990; notably pp93–103, and ‘it is his voice that lives on’). In 1991 R Brinley Jones published Songs of PraisesThe Experience Meeting to guide leaders and pastors in times of great spiritual advances and dangers. At the start of the 21st cent, the 7th generation of the family to be active in Christian service was working in the area. Nos.309, 702, 868*, 898.