Beneath the cross of Jesus

The vivid imagery of this hymn, most of it directly biblical, sets it apart from many others on a similar theme. Like 698 it is the product of a woman in young middle-age staring death in the face; ‘written on the very edge of this life, with the better land fully in the view of faith’—William Arnot as quoted in Julian. Elizabeth Clephane wrote the 5 stzs (now sometimes cut to 4 or 3) at Melrose, Scotland, in 1868, and with other verse of hers headed Breathings on the Border it was published anonymously in 1872 in The Family Treasury, a magazine of the Scottish Presbyterians. In this, the most enduring of her hymns, the opening picture of the rock comes from Isaiah 32:2, enriched by other scriptures; stz 2 centres on Genesis 28, while stz 3 enlarges on the ‘watchman’ of Ezekiel 3 and 33 with the author’s own imagery of the cross and the grave.

Changes from the original, many of them predating the present book, come at 1.2 (from ‘I fain would …’); 2.3,5 (‘O trysting place … As to the holy [later, exiled] patriarch’); 4.5,8 (‘stricken/smitten heart … and my own worthlessness’); and 5.1 (‘I take, O cross, thy shadow’). ‘Worthlessness’ (4.8) is a classic problem; in one sense ‘there is no health in us’ but in another, anyone made in the image of God is worth a great deal. Like other books, the Praise! editors prefer not to mislead some vulnerable Christians (and others) into either glorying in their own exaggerated nothingness, or tempting them into yet deeper despair. But cf 792 stz 4. Erik Routley curiously pronounces the hymn a virtual gospel song which is almost directly opposite to both ‘resurrection-centred Calvinism’ and ‘demure Anglicanism’, though it has featured in both Calvinist and Anglican hymnals for over a century. In 1929 the American F Q Blanchard attempted to supplement or correct the original text with his own Before the cross of Jesus, rather as Marianne Hearn added her Just as I am, thine own to be to 704. A ‘Spring Harvest’ item dated 2005 uses Eliz Clephane’s first 6 words, but has a hit-and-miss rhyme scheme and nothing more about the cross. In discussing its text, however, we should not overlook the obvious; that line 1 takes us directly to John 19:2–26, to join the very distinctive group named there.

Two not dissimilar tunes, both composed for these words, are in common use. Ira Sankey’s BENEATH THE CROSS OF JESUS undoubtedly helped to make the hymn popular with many; but Frederick C Maker’s ST CHRISTOPHER generally preferred, as here. It appeared in 1881 in the key of D flat, together with others by him, in The Bristol Tune Book. The name, apparently arbitrary, is that of a traditional but semi-mythical figure of the 3rd c, not specially associated with the cross.

[given in error as ‘Edith’ in the Praise! index only] Cecilia Douglas, b Edinburgh 1830, d Bridgend House nr Melrose, Roxburgh 1869. Nicknamed ‘Sunbeam’ from her early years and later generosity, and in spite of generally poor health, she spent most of her life in Melrose where she belonged to the Free Ch of Scotland. She was quiet by disposition, a lover of books who especially delighted in poetry. Like her sisters she gave all her spare income away; on one occasion they sold their horse and carriage to support some neighbours in distress. Their home was close to Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Abbotsford’ property. She was the author of ‘The ninety and nine’ (There were ninety and nine that safely lay), published in 1868, which D L Moody saw in The Christian Age newspaper in 1874 and Ira Sankey set to music spontaneously at an evangelistic rally in Edinburgh that year. 8 hymns, including that and the choice included in Praise!, were published anonymously, belatedly and even posthumously in the Free Ch periodical The Family Treasury between 1872 and 1874, under the doubleedged title ‘Breathings on the Border’. She died at home in her 39th year. No.699.