Must Jesus Bear The Cross Alone? A Song History

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The hymn grew from a single stanza by Thomas Shepherd (1665–1739), an English clergyman who left the Church of England for the Independents and completed Penitential Cries (London, 1693), a collection begun by John Mason.[1][2] In one of his hymns there, Shepherd asked whether Simon of Cyrene, who was made to carry Christ's cross, should bear it by himself.[1][2] American revivalists reworked the stanza in Second Advent Hymns for prayer and camp meetings in the early 1840s, and added two more stanzas; Hymnology Archive traces the second to a Philadelphia hymnbook of 1806, while John Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology points to a missionary collection printed at Norwich, England, about 1810.[1][3] George N. Allen (1812–1877) then moved the burden from Simon to Jesus in his Oberlin Social and Sabbath School Hymn Book, giving the opening line its familiar form; Hymnology Archive dates the book to 1844, while the hymnologist C. Michael Hawn places it between 1844 and 1849.[1][2] So much changed along the way that Hawn credits Shepherd with sparking the hymn more than with writing it.[2]

Carved alabaster relief of Christ bowed under the cross with Simon helping to lift it

Jacques Dubroeucq, Christ Carrying the Cross with Saints Simon and Veronica, alabaster, about 1545. Christ carrying the cross with Simon of Cyrene, the helper named in Thomas Shepherd's original stanza.

Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Collection of 1855 printed Allen's version with extra stanzas usually credited to his brother Charles Beecher, and matched it with a "Western Melody" called CROSS AND CROWN; the same pairing appeared that year in a Rochester, New York, tune book.[1][4] The tune took the name MAITLAND in The Sabbath Hymn and Tune Book of 1859, edited by Lowell Mason and others.[4] In 1873 Allen claimed to have composed it at Oberlin around 1850, a statement printed in the New York Observer in 1875.[4] Sources differ on that claim: Hawn accepts Allen as composer, but Hymnary.org notes that the tune went unattributed for years and that Allen's Oberlin book contained no music.[2][5]

MAITLAND gained a second life when the gospel composer Thomas A. Dorsey adapted it for "Precious Lord, Take My Hand," published in 1938, changing a few measures and the meter.[4][2] The older hymn remains in denominational books, including The United Methodist Hymnal, where it is number 424.[2] Larry Conger arranges it in DAD tuning with a capo at the third fret in his Hymns Of Faith Tab Book, a Fingers Of Steel book whose download includes an MP3 recording of each piece.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Must Jesus Bear The Cross Alone?"

Sources

  1. Hymnology Archive: "Must Jesus bear the cross alone".
  2. Discipleship Ministries: "History of Hymns: 'Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone'".
  3. Hymnary.org: "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone".
  4. Hymnology Archive: "Precious Lord, take my hand".
  5. Hymnary.org: "MAITLAND".
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Hymns Of Faith Tab Book".
  7. Image: Jacques Dubroeucq, Christ Carrying the Cross with Saints Simon and Veronica, alabaster, about 1545. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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