Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (Redeemer)

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah/Redeemer (Arglwydd, arwain trwy’r anialwch). William Williams, Pantycelyn* (1717-1791). This hymn, by the greatest of all the Welsh hymn writers, is the best known of all the Welsh hymns in English. The original Welsh hymn, with six stanzas, originally appeared in Williams’ collection Caniadau y rhai sydd ar y Môr o Wydr (‘The Songs of those upon the Sea of Glass’, Carmarthen, 1762) (JJ, p.77, wrongly ascribed it to the pamphlet Alleluia, Bristol 1745, and this error has been widely repeated). In the Welsh it is headed ‘A Prayer for Strength to go through the Wilderness of the World’. Three stanzas were translated by Peter Williams* (1723-1796) and published...