“And so the moment that the broadcast was over, I went into that outer office and began to ask questions. ‘Why the excitement?’ I asked of a pretty stenographer. ‘I’ve never seen such a bustling about.’ The girl smiled as she replied: ‘A very popular singer is going to broadcast tonight,’ she told me, ‘and people are sending in requests that he sing their favorite song. Curiously enough, with hardly an exception, it’s the same song!’ “‘What song is it?’ I asked. And I was both amazed and stirred to learn that the radio audience was asking for one of the splendid old revival hymns—‘The Old Rugged Cross!’” “On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, The emblem of suff’ring and shame; And I love that old cross where the dearest and best For a world of lost sinners was slain.” Thomas D. Whittles tells this story in his book, _The Parish of the Pines_,[23] about Gospel Music in the Lumber Camps An upturned barrel serves for pulpit, and a horse blanket, bearing the manufacturer’s name in large letters, is the embroidered altar cloth. No Genevan gown lends grace to the minister, but coatless he stands—a shirt-sleeved messenger of God. The opening of a service conducted by Frank Higgins, the Sky Pilot, is thus described: “‘Sing No. 31, boys; it’s easy and it’s a good one. Let her go!’ “Alas! and did my Saviour bleed? And did my Sovereign die?” “The hymn is old and the boys welcome it lustily. The music lacks in sweetness: in volume it abounds. “‘You can do better. Hit it harder on the next verse.’ “They do; they shout it forth in full voice, pleased with the song, glad for the privilege of singing. Then the chorus: ‘At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light,’ shakes the bunkhouse and wanders over the far reaches of the night-bound forest. In our fashionable churches, trained voices blend in superb harmony; but this is the music of songless lives.” However different may be our views on many questions of religion, most of us agree that The Cross Remains Matthew Arnold was visiting his brother-in-law, Mr. Cropper, and went with him to a service at Seton Park Church, Liverpool, England. The minister, Dr. John Watson (“Ian Maclaren”), preached on “The Shadow of the Cross,” and the congregation afterwards sang the familiar hymn: “When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died.” At lunch that day Mr. Arnold referred to the hymn, which he said he considered the finest in the English language. Appreciative reference was also made to the sermon; and the poet mentioned especially an illustration which the preacher had drawn from a Riviera earthquake. “In one village,” said Dr. Watson, “the huge crucifix above the altar, with a part of the chancel, remained unshaken amid the ruins, and round the cross the people sheltered.”