Today the Lord Our Shepherd leads

Representative Text

To-day the Lord our Shepherd leads
To living streams His little flock,
In green and flowery pastures feeds,
And shades at noon beneath the rock.

To-day we hear our Shepherd's voice,
And gladly answer to His call;
For Him, unseen, our hearts rejoice,
Who knows, and names, and loves us all.

Far from His fold we went astray;
The howling wilderness He cross'd,
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From Satan pluck'd us as a prey,
Nor spared Himself to save the lost.

Beneath His eye no vain alarms,
No ravening wolves our walks infest;
The lambs He gathers in His arms,
And bears the feeble on His breast.

By Him conducted, though we tread
Death's valley, darkening on the view,
No evil there our spirits dread,
His rod and staff will guard us through.

When the Chief Shepherd shall appear,
And small and great before Him stand,
Oh! be the flock, assembling here,
Found with the sheep on His right hand.

Sacred Poems and Hymns

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Author: James Montgomery

James Montgomery (b. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1771; d. Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, 1854), the son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missio… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Today the Lord Our Shepherd leads
Author:	James Montgomery
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English

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Notes

To-day the Lord our Shepherd leads. J. Montgomery. [The Good Shepherd.] Printed on a broadsheet for the use of Sheffield Sunday School Whit-Monday gathering, June 11,1821, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and signed "J. M." There is also a copy in the Mongomery manuscript in Montgomery's handwriting, dated "Sep. 14, 1833." The text in his Original Hymns, 1853, No. 161, is slightly altered from the broadsheet of 1821. In a few collections it begins “Now may the Lord our Shepherd lead."

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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