Rector’s Reflections
Wednesday 26th February 2025
Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer: A Hymn and its Background
In the last two reflections, we have looked at the life of William Williams, and the significance of the fact that he belonged to the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist movement. It is now time to introduce another 18th Century Welshman into the story, whose name was Peter Williams.
In common with William, Peter was also born in Carmarthenshire. He was a couple of years younger than William, being born in 1721 (William was born in 1717). Again, in common with William, Peter was ordained Deacon in the Church of England, before joining the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists. In due course, Peter became one of the leaders of Methodism in Wales, and remained so for many years. Unfortunately, in the last years of Peter’s life, his relations with the Methodist movement became strained, and he was expelled for heresy in 1791. Peter responded by building a chapel of his own, on some land which he owned in Carmarthen. He died a few years later, in 1796. Over the years Peter made significant contributions to the religious literature of his day, publishing a Welsh Bible with commentary (1767-1770), as well as a Concordance and several hymns.
So where does Peter Williams fit into the story? It happened like this. William Williams published the first version of his hymn Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer in Bristol in 1745. It was in Welsh, in five verses of 6 lines each. In due course, this hymn came to Peter’s attention. We don’t know when or how this happened, but it happened. Peter clearly approved of the hymn, and thought it would be good to translate it into English. Peter selected verses 1, 3 and 5 from the original Welsh, translated them into English, and published them in his Hymns on various Subjects (Carmarthen, 1771). I’m not sure why Peter chose to omit the 2nd and 4th verse of the Welsh original. Perhaps he simply didn’t like them.
So what happened next? Well, William Williams, the author of the original Welsh version, thought that he could improve on Peter William’s translation. So he did. He kept Peter’s translation of verse 1, but made a fresh translation of verses 3 and 4. William then added a fourth verse:
Musing on my habitation,
Musing on my heavenly home,
Fills my soul with holy longings:
Come, my Jesus, quickly come;
Vanity is all I see;
Lord, I long to be with thee!
It is William’s revised translation of the original Welsh which has become the standard text of the hymn as it sung today, at least among English speaking congregations. The text was first printed in a leaflet in c.1772, and various minor variants crept into text over the next hundred years. Most of these variants have now become part of the standard text, with one exception: there is still debate over the preferred ending of the first line of the first verse. Should it be “Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer” or “Guide me O Thou great Jehovah”? Which do you prefer?
So the current English text of Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer is in fact the result of the artistic and spiritual partnership between two Calvinistic Methodists of the 18th Century: William Williams and Peter Williams. I think it is fair to say that William Williams was the guiding spirit, and the true author of the hymn. But would we still be singing it today if Peter Williams hadn’t had the idea of translating it into English? Probably not. It was also fortunate that Peter’s translation wasn’t very good – or at least, not good enough to satisfy the original author. Peter’s limitations as a poet encouraged William to try if he could do a better job. We all have our limitations, and it is good to know that God can and does put our own limitations to good use.
Having now looked at some of the background to the hymn, we shall next turn our thoughts to what it might have to say to us about our spiritual lives and our relationship with God.