Scripture Verse

Introduction

Anecdotes

A young of­fi­cer in the Brit­ish ar­my turned away in hor­ror from the doc­trine of this hymn. His pride re­volt­ed, his self right­eous­ness rose in re­bell­ion, and he said: He would be a cow­ard in­deed who would go to hea­ven at the cost of an­oth­er!

As the years rolled away, this man rose to dis­tinc­tion and high rank in the ar­my, and he al­so learned wis­dom. In his last hours, as he lay on his death­bed, he re­peat­ed­ly begged those near him to sing O Christ, what burd­ens bowed Thy head, call­ing it, My hymn, my hymn!

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A gun­ner of the roy­al ar­til­le­ry was at­tend­ing the Old Sol­diers’ Home in Wool­wich dur­ing the spring of 1886. The chief at­tract­ion to him at first was the night school. From this he was ev­en­tu­al­ly led to join the Bi­ble class and at­tend the Sun­day ev­en­ing ser­vice in the Hall

Seeing that he looked ve­ry un­hap­py and that he lin­gered af­ter the meet­ing, one night, a wor­ker asked him if any­thing was trou­bling him. The tears came to his eyes at once, and he said: I want to be a Chris­tian, but I am af­raid that I am too bad.

He then told how on the pre­vi­ous Sun­day ev­en­ing, when this hymn was sung, he was so over­pow­ered by the thought of what the Lord had en­dured for our sins that af­ter the first verse he could not sing. The so­lemn words were fixed in his me­mo­ry, and had trou­bled him all the week, un­til he came to the great Bur­den-bear­er.

Sankey, pp. 248–49