CHAPTER IX
“The Old Rugged Cross”
The Cross is the triumphant symbol of a militant and puissant Christianity. It tells of “love divine, all loves excelling.” It sustains hope in the final victory of good. It establishes faith in the persistent reality of truth. The Gospel of the Cross proclaims redemption from sin, reconciliation with God, realization of goodwill to all people. There is absolutely nothing else to equal the appeal of the Cross in its power to produce the most desirable changes in the individual and in society. Wherever it has been preached with the conviction of experience and the constraint of passion, the Holy Christ has won trophies in lives recovered from the waste of sin, renewed by the power of grace, enriched by the practices of purity and peace.
Indeed, the only cure for our distracted age is found in the Atoning Christ. This is endorsed by the voices of redeemed multitudes of every age and land. The testimony from life is conclusive. It holds us by a resolute determination to announce its message of pardon and joy to everyone. In the words of John Oxenham,
“Love, with the lifted hands and thorn-crowned head;
Still conquers death, though life itself be fled,—
His Cross still stands!
Yes,—Love triumphant stands, and stands for more,
In our great need, than e’er it stood before!
His Cross still stands!”[21]
The Cross makes a universal appeal, as in this incident related by Miss Margaret Sangster[22] when