He Leads Us On

He leads us on by paths we did not know;
Upward He leads us, tho’ our steps be slow;
Tho’ oft we faint and falter on the way,
Tho’ storms and darkness oft obscure the day,
Yet when the clouds are gone,
We know He leads us on.

He leads us on thro’ all th’unquiet years;
Past all our dreamland hopes, and doubts, and fears
He guides our steps; thro’ all the tangled maze
Of losses, sorrows, and o’erclouded days
We know His will is done,
And still He leads us on.

And He, at last—after the weary strife,
After the restless fever we call life,
After the dreariness, the aching pain,
The wayward struggles which have proved in vain,
After our toils are past—
Will give us rest at last.

Author: Hiram W. Baker

Year: 1864

The hymn text is a well-known 19th-century poem beginning "He leads us on by paths we did not know." It is most commonly attributed to Hiram W. Baker (sometimes listed as H. W. Baker), first published in 1864. It is occasionally misattributed to other authors such as John Henry Newman due to superficial stylistic similarities, but Baker is the accepted primary attribution.