Score For The Hymn: ‘At The Cross’
Sources: Score For The Hymn: ‘At The Cross’
History: Chronicle of Ladysmith & District (Ladysmith New Horizons Society)
Ladysmith acquired a small black community as the indirect result of political and social movements in the United States. In the 1850s, pressure was being brought to bear on the Washington government by the South to make California a slave state. Hundreds of black people came to British Columbia from California to escape the threat against their liberty. Most started their lives in and around Victoria, but the population gradually spread out, with some arriving to work in the coal mines and building the new coal port and town of Ladysmith around 1900.
The black community built a small church (Pastor, Reverend Brown) and on summer evenings could be heard singing their special hymn “At the Cross, At the Cross” the words of the verses and chorus of which are:
Alas, and did my Saviour bleed?
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head?
For such a worm as I?
Chorus:
At the cross, at the cross where
I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!
Was it for crimes that I had done?
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!
But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe
Here Lord, I give myself away
‘Tis all that I can do.