The story behind the hymn
George Bennard was a Salvation Army officer turned Methodist evangelist, working the small towns of Michigan and the Midwest. Around 1912, after a season of ridicule and hardship, he found himself returning again and again to Galatians 6:14 — God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross — and to the conviction that the cross was not a polished symbol but a rugged instrument of execution, and glorious precisely so.
The melody came first; the words took months. He completed the hymn at Pokagon, Michigan, in 1913, and it was sung publicly there in the little Methodist church before spreading through evangelistic campaigns — Billy Sunday's soloist Homer Rodeheaver bought an interest in it and carried it across America.
The hymn's power is its exchange: the emblem of suffering and shame cherished over every prize the world offers, till my trophies at last I lay down. For decades of radio-era polls it ranked as America's favourite hymn, and it still carries plain-spoken gospel to funerals and revival meetings alike: I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it some day for a crown.
The lyrics
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,The emblem of suffering and shame;And I love that old cross where the dearest and bestFor a world of lost sinners was slain.
Refrain
So I'll cherish the old rugged cross,Till my trophies at last I lay down;I will cling to the old rugged cross,And exchange it some day for a crown.
O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,Has a wondrous attraction for me;For the dear Lamb of God left His glory aboveTo bear it to dark Calvary.
To the old rugged cross I will ever be true,Its shame and reproach gladly bear;Then He'll call me some day to my home far away,Where His glory for ever I'll share.
Public domain. Free to sing, copy, print, and share.
The Scripture behind it
But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
The verse Bennard could not get past — the hymn's seed.
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Despising the shame — the cross endured for joy, the crown exchanged at the end.