Endure when crowns and empires fall.
The might of His undying love
In dying conquered all.”
—John Oxenham.
Building Gone, but Hymn Remains
“Above the hills of time the cross is gleaming,
Fair as the sun when night has turned to day;
And from it love’s pure light is richly streaming,
To cleanse the heart and banish sin away.”
“The church where that hymn was first sung is utterly destroyed, but the hymn remains. In this thought I take comfort.” Thus wrote the Rev. Thomas Tiplady, superintendent of the Lambeth Mission, London, to The Hymn Society of America a few weeks after the end of World War II. He explained thus: “Had not the Church of England friends granted the use of a tiny chapel and a wooden hut the congregation would have been entirely homeless, for the wrecking of the entire buildings of the Mission was completed by a rocket bomb.” The building was historic, and dated back to the ministry of the notable commentator, Dr. Adam Clark.