His experience was a clear one, and the duty of becoming a preacher was made plain to him. He received deacon's orders at the age of twenty-three. At the age of thirty-two he left the Established Church and became an itinerant Methodist preacher. He possessed the warm heart and glowing imagination of a true Welshman, and his sermons abounded with vivid picturing, and, always radiant with the presence of his Divine Master, they produced an extraordinary effect on susceptible Welshmen. Working in connection with such zealous ministers as Harris and Rowlands, he became a very popular preacher, and his local fame greatly increased when to Welsh eloquence he added the choicest gifts of song, and began to publish his highly experimental hymns. The inspiring words of "O'er the gloomy hills of darkness," were written long before the beginning of foreign missionary enterprises, while Williams, its popular author, was yet traversing the lonely mountains of Wales, and looking for the dawn of a brighter religious day. Welshmen sung the hymn as a prophecy, and felt their hearts gladdened with hope, years and years before the church begun her aggressive march into pagan and heathen lands. His first Welsh hymn-book was entitled the “Alleluia," and was printed in Bristol in six parts in 1745-47. His second book was called "The Sea of Glass," and the third, “Visible Farewell; Welcome to Invisible Things." In 1771 he wrote an elegy on Whitefield, which he dedicated to the Countess of Huntingdon. He died in 1791. It is probable that the famous hymn, beginning, "Guide me, O thou great Jehovah," was sung in America before it obtained a European reputation. Its history is as follows: Lady Huntingdon having read one of Williams' books with much spiritual satisfaction, persuaded him to prepare a collection of hymns, to be called the "Gloria in Excelsis," for especial use in Mr. Whitefield's Orphans' House in America. In this collection appeared the original stanzas of "Guide me, O thou great Jehovah." In 1774, two years after its publication in the "Gloria in Excelsis," it was republished in England in Mr. Whitefield's collections of hymns. Its rendering from the Welsh into English is attributed to W. Evans, who gives a rendering similar to that found in the present collections of hymns. The hymn was taken up by the Calvinist-Methodists, embodying as it did a metrical prayer for God's overcoming strength and victorious deliverance in life's hours of discipline and trial, expressed in truly majestic language, in harmony with a firm religious reliance and trust, and a lofty experimental faith. It immediately became popular among all denominations of Christians, holding a place in the affections of the church with Robinson's "Come, thou Fount of every blessing." It is now usually sung to "Greenville," the music of which is nearly identical with Rousseau's "Dream," and which was composed by Rousseau. Its original music, as we have said, was written by Thomas Olivers. The original hymn had four stanzas, and was somewhat stronger in the choice of words than the present popular verses. It was as follows: Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren land: Feed me till I want no more. Open now the crystal fountain, Whence the healing streams do flow; Let the fiery, cloudy pillar Guide me all my journey through; Be thou still my strength and shield. When I tread the verge of Jordan, I will ever give to thee. Musing on my habitation, Musing on my heavenly home, Lord, I long to be with thee. Most versions read in the second line of the second stanza, "Whence the crystal waters flow," which presents to the mind a picture inferior to the original. In the third stanza the third line usually reads, “Bear me through the swelling current," which is also an inferior picture for the singer, whatever it may be to the rhetorician. The last stanza is fervent, confident, and strong, lifting the soul on the wings of aspiration and faith, and it seems rather remarkable that it should be so commonly omitted. "LORD OF THE SABBATH, HEAR OUR VOWS.” WHEN Dr. Doddridge, during his useful ministry, had finished the preparation of a pulpit discourse that strongly impressed him, he was accustomed, while his heart was yet glowing with the sentiment that had inspired him, to put the principal thoughts into metre, and use the hymn thus written at the conclusion of the preaching of the sermon. At the close of a discourse preached in Jan. 2, 1736, from the text, "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God," he read the beautiful hymn, containing the following almost unequalled stan zas: Thine earthly Sabbaths, Lord, we love, To that our laboring souls aspire, No more fatigue, no more distress, No rude alarms of raging foes; |