Though It Be a Cross

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 22, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 16.

"Though It Be a Cross."

THE great congregation is waiting before the Lord in his house. The minister reads with solemn emphasis the weighty words of a familiar hymn. A multitude of voices take up the words and the melody, and a thrilling burst of inspiring song fills the room,— "Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee, E'en though it be a cross That raiseth me!"

These are the words they sing—words full of passionate desire after the living God, and breathing a spirit of burning devotion and complete submission. How many of the singers know and feel what they are saying to the Lord? Do they know that to be raised nearer to God on a cross is painful? Do they count the cost of crucifixion in their desire to be lifted nearer the heart of the loving One?

Here are the youthful, the gay, the merry, who hardly know what a cross or a sorrow means. Their laughing lips have never tasted the cup of wormwood and gall. Their shining eyes have seldom been dimmed with other tears than those of joy. What can they know of pain by which chastened souls rise nearer to God? Oh, it is a terrible thing to say, "E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me!" Perhaps they would turn back with a shudder if they saw the cross before them.

Here are also mature Christians who have borne the burden and heat of the day. They have suffered with Christ in the fellowship of love and service. Do even they realize what they are singing? Nearer to God—nearer at any cost or sacrifice—and nearer through sorrow's sharpest discipline. Are they "able to drink of that cup" which the Master pressed to his pallid lips in the days of his agony?

There can be no doubt that intimate fellowship with God is worth infinitely more than anything and all that it can cost. It would be worth purchasing even at the cost of life itself. In prisons and exile, in tortures and deaths, have multitudes rejoiced in the blessedness of that wonderful fellowship with which God so richly overpays our poor human sacrifices and losses and pains. Nothing is worth keeping that hinders the soul's approach toward God. The best things become dross when they shut out the true riches from the heart.

Then let the beautiful heart-song be sung. There is no way of approach to God so dark that he will not light it with joy. There is no cross of crucifixion so cruel that he cannot make it more than tolerable; and the higher it is, the nearer it will lift the sufferer to God. Never can we doubt his great love to us, or fear the outcome of his discipline.

"Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to thee!"

—Evangelical Messenger.