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Where He Leads Me The text for “Where He Leads Me” was written by Ernest W. Blandy, a 19th-century author about whom no other information is available. His name is often misspelled Blandly. The tune was composed by John Samuel Norris, who was born on Dec. 4, 1844, at West Cowes on the Isle of Wight in the English Channel off the coast of England, the son of John and Harriet Chalk Norris. Moving to Canada, he was educated there and began to serve as a Methodist minister at Oshawa, Ontario, in 1868. For ten years he served Methodist churches in Ontario, Canada, and Wisconsin. In 1870, Norris was married to Elizabeth Ann Hurd in Sunderland, Ontario, Canada, and seven children were born to this home. Several years later, in 1878, he became a member of the Congregational Church and for five years served as a Congregationalist minister in the United States with churches in Wisconsin at Mondovi, Hixton, Grand Rapids, and Shullsburg. Then from 1882 to 1901, he served churches in Iowa at Ames, Webster City, Parkersburg, Peterson, and Tripoli. Norris published one collection of hymns, Songs of the Soul, but of the more than 100 hymns which he produced, only "Where He Leads Me" remains in common usage. It is not known exactly when it first appeared, but in many older collections it bears the copyright date of 1890. If this indicates the approximate date of its publication, it occurred during or immediately following the two years that Norris was with the Congregational Church in Webster City, IA. In 1901 Norris moved to Chicago, IL, where he remained until his death on Sept. 23, 1907.
Lyrics by Earnest Blandy
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