HE LEADETH ME

Feb 11
2 min read

Dr. Joseph H. Gilmore was born in Boston, April 29, 1834. He was the son of a Governor of New Hampshire. He was well educated and graduated in Arts at Brown University and in Theology at Newton Theological Institution. He became a Professor of Hebrew at the Newton Institute, and was later appointed the Professor of Logic in Rochester University in 1868.

For some time, he held a Baptist ministerial charge at Fisherville, New Hampshire and later at Rochester, New York. At the age of 31 years, he came to Second Baptist Church in Rochester to preach for a call…and what happened next surprised even him!!

It was at a time just after graduation that Joseph was preaching for a couple of Sundays at a church in Philadelphia. At a mid-week service in March, 1862, he planned to present a message on the 23^rd Psalm…a study he had presented a few times before. This time, however, he could not get further then the words, “He leadeth me…” These words, used more than once in the Psalm, took on a whole new significance.

It happened to be the darkest hour of the Civil War at that time. At the close of the meeting, some of the congregation stayed behind to discuss the teaching further. It was right then and there that Dr. Gilmore penciled the words of a poem on a blank sheet of paper. He later handed the poem to his wife and thought no more about it.

His wife not only thought about the poem, but sent it to a religious periodical, "The Watchmen and Reflector," who published it shortly thereafter. William Bradbury saw the poem and was so inspired by the words that he was driven to compose music for them. This new hymn was then included in hymn books being produced at that time.

We now go back to the Second Baptist Church where young Gilmore was arriving to preach for a call. When he opened the hymn book to choose a song for the service…there it was…his poem with music. He later said that it made quite an impression on him to see his own assertion of God’s blessed leadership! HE LEADETH ME, has appeared in almost every hymnal published for the years since.