Readings · Hymns
The Old Rugged Cross
George Bennard · 20 lines
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suff’ring and shame,
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
Chorus
So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown.
Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
Has a wondrous attraction for me;
For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above,
To bear it to dark Calvary.
In the old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty I see,
For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
To pardon and sanctify me.
To the old rugged cross I will ever be true,
Its shame and reproach gladly bear,
Then He’ll call me some day to my home far away,
Where His glory forever I’ll share.
About this reading
George Bennard, an evangelist, wrote both the words and the music. The Library of Congress copyright record dates publication to February 13, 1913, when he was living in Albion, Michigan. The words here are from a collection he published himself in 1923, which prints that copyright date.
The four verses and the chorus, from the collection Bennard published in 1923. Other printings of the 1910s and 1920s differ from it a little in punctuation.
- First published
- 1913
- Text from
- Bennard's Melodies of Salvation (Chicago, 1923)
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