"We Are Going Down the Valley" was written around 1890 by Jessie Pounds, (1861-1921). Mrs. Pounds wrote over 400 hymn texts, including "Anywhere With Jesus,"
"Beautiful Isle of Somewhere,"
"I Know that My Redeemer Liveth," and "The Way of the Cross Leads Home."
The music was written by James H. Fillmore, Sr. (1849-1936), who collaborated with Jessie Pounds for thirty years. He wrote the music for such hymns as
"I Am Resolved,"
"The Beautiful Garden of Prayer," "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth," and "Purer in Heart, O Lord."
This hymn, sometimes sung as a funeral song, has a somber, even mournful, feel to it, but includes the promise that a "tender hand will guide us lest we fall," and echos the 23rd Psalm as it reminds us that even in valley of the shadow of death, the Lord is with us.
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