To sing with us, 1) Click on the music thumbnail icon to view the sheet music (you don't have to read music!), and 2) Engage the audio file by clicking on the Real audio or Mp3 file.
"Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" was first translated into English by Peter Williams (no relation of William Williams, the lyricist). The hymn originally had five six-line stanzas, and in 1771 Peter Williams published the hymn with stanzas 1, 3 and 5 translated into English. A year later, William Williams, using Peter's stanza 1, translated stanzas 3 and 4, then added another stanza. [William Williams' stanzas] Most hymnals use the first three of these English stanzas.
Peter Williams was born in 1723, in Carmarthenshire Wales. While at Carmarthen College, he was warned by a tutor to not attend the services of the "fanatical Whitefield", but he ignored the warning, going and becoming converted. He was ordained a minister in 1744, pastoring a church in Eglwys Cymmyn. He left the Anglican church in 1745, to join the Methodists. He was expelled in 1791 for heresy and founded a chapel on Water Street in Carmarthen.
Williams published a Welsh HymnBook, 1759 and Hymns on Various Subjects, 1771, among other works.