Carrying His own cross, He went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified Him.
John 19:17–18
Words: Cecil F. Alexander, 1847.
Music: Green Hill (Stebbins) George C. Stebbins, 1878 (🔊 pdf nwc).
Alternate Tunes:
Alexander wrote this hymn as she sat up one night with her seriously sick daughter. Many times, traveling to town to shop, she had passed a small grassy mound, just outside the old city wall of Derry, Ireland. It always made her think of Calvary, and it came to mind as she wrote this hymn. She published it in her Hymns for Little Children in 1848.
While holding meetings with Mr. Moody, at Cardiff, Wales, in 1883, I visited the ruins of Tintern Abbey with Professor Drummond. While there I sang this song, which the professor said to me was one of the finest hymns in the English language. A number of years later I sang it on the green hill believed to be Calvary, outside the walls of Jerusalem.
Sankey, pp. 283–84
There is a green hill far away,
Outside a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all.
Refrain
O dearly, dearly, has He loved,
And we must love Him, too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His works to do.
We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains He had to bear;
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there.
Refrain
He died that we might be forgiv’n,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to Heav’n,
Saved by His precious blood.
Refrain
There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.
Refrain
O dearly, dearly has He loved,
And we must love Him, too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His works to do.
Refrain