- Full Text
- Father of light conduct my feet, Through life’s dark dangerous road
Let each advancing step still bring
Me nearer to my God.
Let heavenly prudence be my guide
And when I go astray
Recall my feet from folly’s path
To wisdom’s better way.
- Sampler Worked By
- Elizabeth A. H. Hyde
- Date of Sampler
- 1812
- Place Sampler Made
- n.p.
- Sampler Listed on Page
- 178
- Notes
- https://archive.org/details/christianmoralso01maso/page/104/mode/1up?q=%22recall+my+feet+from+folly%27s+path%22
John Mason’s hymn appears following a sermon on prudence. Each sermon was followed by a coordinated hymn on the topic.
This Hymn is traditionally attributed to Christopher Smart by John Julian in his Dictionary of Hymnology, v.2, p. 925. Julian mentions that this was included in a 1771 two volume set of Smart’s collected works. Smart’s last work, Hymns for the Amusement of Children was published in 1771, the year he died. However, it isn’t in the original 1771 version, nor in any searched collections of Smart’s work. The misattribution may stem from this hymn appearing in an added appendix to a 1791 Philadelphia version. In this edition Smart’s Hymns are printed with Isaac Watt’s Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language for the Life of Children and adds uncredited hymns in its appendix, which are the same set of John Mason’s hymns under different titles.