A hymn of Scottish origin, especially appropriate for use in Good Friday services, but it can also be used on more general occasions.
Elizabeth Cecilia Douglas Clephane, daughter of the Sheriff of Fife and Kinross, was born in Edinburgh. She was a member of the Free Church of Scotland. Her hymn, “There were ninety and nine,” became widely known through its use by Moody and Sankey in their famous evangelistic meetings.
The hymn, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus,” appeared in Scotland, three years after the death of Miss Clephane, in The Family Treasure, a home magazine, with this explanatory note by the editor:
These lines express the experiences, the hopes, and the longings of a young Christian lately released. Written on the very edge of this life, with the better land fully in view of faith, they seem to us footsteps printed on the sands of Time, where those sands touch the ocean of Eternity. These footprints of one whom the Good Shepherd led through the wilderness into rest, may, with God’s blessing, contribute to comfort and direct succeeding pilgrims.
MUSIC. ST. CHRISTOPHER was composed for this hymn by Frederick C. Maker, 1844-1927, an English organist and composer of numerous hymn tunes. Maker spent all his life in Bristol, England, thirty years of which were devoted to the position of organist at the Redland Park Congregational Church.
HIS RESURRECTION
113. Come ye faithful, raise the strain
John of Damascus, c. 700
Tr. John M. Neale
A Greek hymn based on the Song of Moses, Exodus 15.