Hymn of the Month:

“The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land.”  Isaiah 32:2

        As his story goes, a few years ago a very good friend of mine and his daughter were driving along the south coast of Spain. As they travelled, he was teaching/reminding her of some of the songs in the Believer’s Hymn Book. As they approached Gibraltar, what should come to his mind but the key line of this great piece, “a mighty rock within a weary land”. Gibraltar certainly is a “mighty rock”, but the thought of THE “Mighty Rock”, Jesus, caused him to worship all over again.

Beneath the cross of Jesus, I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land;
A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day.

O safe and happy shelter, O refuge tried and sweet,
O trysting place where Heaven’s love and Heaven’s justice meet!
As to the holy patriarch that wondrous dream was given,
So seems my Savior’s cross to me, a ladder up to heaven.

There lies beneath its shadow but on the further side
The darkness of an awful grave that gapes both deep and wide
And there between us stands the cross two arms outstretched to save
A watchman set to guard the way from that eternal grave.

Upon that cross of Jesus mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of One Who suffered there for me;
And from my stricken heart with tears two wonders I confess;
The wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face;

Content to let the world go by, to know no gain or loss,
My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.

       The writer, Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane, third daughter of Andrew Clephane, Sheriff of Fife, was born at Edinburgh, June 18, 1830, and died at Bridgend House, near Melrose, Scotland, February 19, 1869.

        The third verse may be unfamiliar to readers of the Believer’s Hymn Book, but it takes on deep significance when we realize that Eliza was writing this in 1868, only months before her own death. It is strange that G.K.Chesterton should pick up on this same theme sixty years later, of the arms of the cross “outstretched to save”. He pointed out that a circle is very exclusive, but the shape of the cross is welcoming—its arms can extend boundlessly, to receive anyone.

        Eliza was known in Melrose for her bright and sunny ways. But another of her hymns looks to the shepherds and sheep on the surrounding hills and laments,

There were ninety and nine that safely lay

In the shelter of the fold,

But one was out on the hills away,

Far off from the gates of gold.

That one, it was feared, was her own brother, George (1819-1851), in Fergus, Ontario. A later verse shows that she believed he had returned to the fold shortly before he died.

        Another resident of Melrose at that time (1859 to approximately 1878) was Anne Ross Cousin, the author of Immanuel’s Land. They were both from the Free Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) and must have known each other and worked and worshiped together, where Anne’s husband William Cousin was the pastor.