“JESUS, I MY CROSS HAVE TAKEN.”
This is another well-known and characteristic hymn of Henry Francis Lyte—originally six stanzas. We have been told that, besides his bodily affliction, the grief of an unhappy division or difference in his church weighed upon his spirit, and that it is alluded to in these lines—
Man may trouble and distress me,
'Twill but drive me to Thy breast,
Life with trials hard may press me,
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
O, 'tis not in grief to harm me
While Thy love is left to me,
O, 'tis not in joy to charm me
Were that joy unmixed with Thee.
Tunes, “Autumn,” by F.H. Barthelemon, or “Ellesdie,” (formerly called “Disciple”) from Mozart—familiar in either.