The story behind a hymn of the faith.
That's the quick backstory of Welsh evangelist Rev. William Williams (1717-1791) --and yes, his first and last names almost matched. His aspiration to become a doctor was changed one Sunday morning he traveled home from college. By one account, he was drawn to a service held in a local farmhouse. By another account, one day while passing through a little Welsh village, he heard church bells and slipped into the little “official” church, sitting through its very formal service. Afterwards, he noticed many reassembled in the cemetery outside the church where a man started preaching. Not flat, cold formal preaching, but fiery, convicting preaching like that of John the Baptist.
Whichever account is true, Williams' focus turned away from medical training to enter the Anglican ministry. But he never felt “at home” in the ritualistic church. Deciding instead to make all Wales his “parish,” over the next half century, on foot and by horse, covering 3,000 miles a year, he presented the Gospel of Christ in his home country. One source estimated he traveled more than 95,000 miles, drawing crowds of 10,000 or more. Of such large crowds in those pre-microphone days, Williams wrote in his journal: “God strengthened me to speak so loud that most could hear.” One mob nearly beat him to death. But he pursued God's will on his life until dying at age 74.
He was a hymn-writer as well as a preacher, leaving behind a reported 800 Welsh-language hymns, the best-known of which is “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.” That text was inspired by the Bible's account of the Exodus from Egypt and as a symbol of a believer's spiritual pilgrimage. One writer remarked, “He sang Wales into piety.” Soon, all of Wales was singing, from the coal mines to the soccer field.
By the way, in Welsh this 1745 hymn's title is “Arglwydd, arwain trwy'r anialwch.” Learning Welsh was part of tasks facing then-19-year-old Prince Charles (now King) when his mother Queen Elizabeth II designated him “Prince of Wales.” For that, he was taken out of Cambridge University and enrolled at Aberystwyth University (at a seaside city in West Wales) for intensive language study. Years later, the hymn was sung at the 2007 funeral of Charles' former wife, Princess Diana.
Notably, a century-plus earlier, it was sung at the deathbed of U.S. President James Garfield, an inoperable (in those days) assassin's bullet lodged deep in his body. One day while hearing Mrs. Garfield singing this hymn, the dying President, aware of his own “soon exodus” to Heaven, remarked, “Glorious, isn't it?”
A Welsh choir and congregation sing the hymn in this You-Tube: 'Guide Me, Oh Thou Great Jehovah'.
(The site ends with the Welsh words.)