Beneath the cross of Jesus
I fain would take my stand-
The shadow of a mighty rock,
Within a weary land:
A home within the wilderness,
A rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noontide heat,
And the burden of the day.

O safe and happy shelter,
O refuge tried and sweet,
O trysting-place where heaven's love
And heaven's justice meet!
As to the holy patriarch
That wondrous dream was given,
So means my Saviour's cross to me,
A ladder up to heaven.

I take, O cross, thy shadow
For my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than
The sunshine of His face;
Content to let the world go by,
To know no gain or loss-
My former life my only shame,
My glory all the cross.

These are the words of Elizabeth C. Clephane (1830-1869), the daughter of the Sherif of Fife, Scotland, in around 1868. It appeared in the "Family Treasury" as did most of her hymns. One of her other hymns is 'There was ninety and nine that safely lay'.

The tune to this is St. Christopher, which is rather melancholy and evokes similar feelings and emotions to those expressed by the writer. The tune is by Frederick C. Maker, who was a professor of music at Clifton College, Bristol.

Here are some of the scripture references to this hymn as per www.hymnary.org. You may have your own or some others that the writer may have had in her mind;

John 19:25 "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene."

Isaiah 32:2 "And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

Isaiah 28:12 "To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear."

Isaiah 4:6 "And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain."

Isaiah 25:4-5 "For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall. Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low."

Galatians 6:14 "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"

Philippians 3:3-11 "For we…which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh… But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."

NAC