In this episode, Bob and Mary Shaffer, of the Old Rugged Cross Church and Museum, invite us into the restored, 1913 church building where the beloved hymn was first sung.
They talk about how they took a collapsing barn and turned it back into a church, some of the other sites that claim “The Old Rugged Cross,” George Bennard, and more!
Ed Petrus of New Castle, Pennsylvania, tells the story of Ira Sankey and the inspiration for his song, “The Ninety and Nine.”
In 1963, the Pro Football Hall of Fame opened in Canton, Ohio. One year later, Pastor Harold Henniger was reading Hebrews 11, that great passage on faith and the heroes of the faith, and thought it would be a great idea to have a Hall of Fame for Christian heroes so, on April 12, 1966, Canton Baptist Temple instituted the Christian Hall of Fame. Listen in as Mike Frazier, senior pastor of Canton Baptist Temple, tells the story.
Bill Federer, author of America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations, joins us to talk about the visit by Abraham Lincoln to Moody’s Sunday school; Moody’s work in the Civil War with the U.S. Christian Commission; P. T. Barnum’s hippodrome; and Booker T. Washington, the freemen schools, and his famous “Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are” speech.
Bill Federer, author of America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations, joins us to talk about social impact ministry throughout history, especially as a result of Charles Finney’s initial work.
He talks about several Christians who founded global organizations, such as William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army), George Williams (founder of the Young Men’s Christian Association, aka the YMCA), Henry Dunant (founder of the International Red Cross), and Edgar James Helms (founder of Goodwill).
He analyzes how Christian experience goes from a first generation convert, to a second generation legalist, to a third generation rebel.
Lastly, he tells the story of Jeremiah Lanphier and the Laymen’s Prayer Revival in New York City, which began on September 23, 1857.
He wrote Shall We Gather at the River, What Can Wash Away My Sin?, Low in the Grave He Lay, Jesus My Savior; as well as the chorus to I Need Thee, O I Need Thee
On location in Whitewater, Wisconsin, we found the tomb of James Delaney, the Irishman saved in Burma who became a missionary to Wisconsin
Tim Schmig is at the grave of Adoniram Judson, telling the remarkable story of how Adoniram grew up in a Christian home, lost his faith in college, and how he returned to the Lord!
Ye soldiers of the cross;
Lift high His royal banner,
It must not suffer loss:
From vict’ry unto vict’ry
His army shall He lead,
Till every foe is vanquished
And Christ is Lord indeed.
Stand up for Jesus
Ye soldiers of the cross;
Lift high His royal banner,
It must not, it must not suffer loss.
Stand up! stand up for Jesus!
The trumpet call obey;
Forth to the mighty conflict
In this His glorious day.
Ye that are men, now serve Him
Against unnumbered foes;
Let courage rise with danger.
And strength to strength oppose.
Stand up! stand up for Jesus!
Stand in His strength alone;
The arm of flesh will fail you;
Ye dare not trust your own.
Put on the Gospel armor,
And, watching unto prayer,
Where duty calls, or danger,
Be never wanting there.
Stand up! stand up for Jesus!
The strife will not be long:
This day the noise of battle,
The next the victor’s song;
To him that overcometh
A crown of life shall be;
He, with the King of glory,
Shall reign eternally.
The K in James K Polk stands for Knox. His mother was Jane Knox, a direct descendant of John Knox, the Scottish preacher who faced off against Bloody Queen Mary.
His mother, it is said, held to four things: the Bible, the Confession of Faith, the Psalms, and Isaac Watts’ Hymns.
His father on the other hand, scoffed at religion. He wanted carved on his tombstone:
Here lies the dust of old E.P. on instance of mortality
Pennsylvania born Carolina bred, In Tennessee died on his bed.
His youthful days he spent in pleasure, His latter days in gathering treasure
From superstition liv’d quite free, and practised strict morality…
To holy cheats was never willing To give one solitary shilling
First fruits and tenths are odious things And so are Bishops, Tithes, and Kings
James K Polk had two strong forces – one pulling him towards God and one pulling Him away. In 1833, James Polk was running for Congress and heard a crowd was gathering at the Campground near Columbia, Tennessee. Politicians and crowds are like moths to a flame, so Polk went! Evangelist John McFerrin was preaching. Polk was impacted – but McFerrin reports that “he went away from the camp-ground a convicted sinner, if not a converted man.”
Polk was re-elected to congress, he was hard-working, dedicated to politics, and ambitious. But not saved as best as we can tell, unlike his wife.
Later as Governor of Tennessee, Polk “used to hold many arguments with” McFerrin “and that he had promised him that when he did embrace Christianity, [McFerrin]… should baptize him.”
James Polk went on to be president, the ambitious lawyer was the youngest president America had ever had to that point. Many regard him as one of the most powerful – he stopped a potential war with Britain and started a war with Mexico. He annexed Texas and acquired California when the war with Mexico ended. While president he kept a diary, and while he attended church regularly with his wife, he never commented on the service. Except for one day, in which he made some surprising comments on the presidency.
Sunday, November 2nd, 1845. The day of his fiftieth birthday. This is from his very own diary:
“Attended the Methodist Church (called the Foundery Church) to-day, in company with my private secretary, J. Knox Walker. It was an inclement day, there being rain from an early hour in the morning, and Mrs. Polk and the ladies of my household did not attend church to-day. Mrs. Polk being a member of the Presbyterian Church, I generally attend that church with her, though my opinions and predilections are in favor of the Methodist Church. This was my birthday, being fifty years old. The text was from the Acts of the Apostles, chap. 17, verse 31: ‘Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained.’ It was communion day, and the sermon was solemn and forcible. It awakened the reflection that I had lived fifty years, and that before fifty years more would expire I would be sleeping with the generations which have gone before me. I thought of the vanity of this world’s honors, how little they would profit me half a century hence, and that it was time for me to be “putting my house in order.”
Diary of President James K. Polk
Did you catch this? The president of the United States – thinking of the vanity of this world’s honors, and how little they would profit him in fifty years!
Yet nothing is written of what he did to put his house in order. For the next 4 years of his presidency, he records many church services that he went to, but no commentary on any of them.
Finally, 1849 came, and his one term as president came to an end. Acquaintances (he didn’t have too many friends) noticed that the presidency aged him incredibly. He would be dead in just three months.
Shortly before he died, he called for another pastor.
“Sir, if I had suspected twenty years ago that I should come to my death-bed unprepared, it would have made me a wretched man; yet I am about to die and have not made preparation. Tell me, sir, can there be any ground for a man thus situated to hope?”
The minister talked with him of the gospel, President Polk was quite familiar with the Bible, but probably just on a head-basis, not a heart-basis. Unfortunately, the illness took over and Polk was unable to continue talking with the minister.
The next day, Polk in a moment of clarity, remembered his conversation with the Evangelist McFerrin, and summoned him – finally ready to get his life in order.
James K Polk is a story of an ambitious politician – who as best as we can tell, kept pushing off his relationship with the Lord, until it was almost too late.
The sermon he heard while president that almost drove him to give his life to Christ was from Acts 17:31. The previous verse tells us God “now commandeth all men every where to repent.” Don’t wait until its too late!
For more information on James Polk, check out:
Join us as we go on location to West Bend, WI to learn about the Wisconsin Gospel song,
“Wonderful Peace!”
This hymn is a uniquely Wisconsin hymn. The words were written by a pastor buried in Wisconsin, and set to music by a pastor born in Wisconsin.
Rev. Warren D. Cornell was born in Michigan but left at 19 to teach and preach in Texas. At 23 he came to Wisconsin, where he’d spend the next 40 years of his life in pulpit ministry and civic service. He pastored in the greater Oshkosh area for awhile and 1889 found him as pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Berlin, Wisconsin. He later founded an independent church in Fond du Lac, the same city where he’s also buried.
In the 19th century, Camp meetings were an opportunity for churches to come together for singing and fellowship, but primarily preaching the way of Salvation, with the Mourner’s Bench prominently at the front.
Rev. William G. Cooper was pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in West Bend, Wisconsin, he’d later go on to pastor several Baptist churches, but in 1889, his church in West Bend held their annual summer camp meeting from Wednesday night to Sunday night. According to the church historian, the families would gather at the farm of Francis Gansel, a Prussian immigrant to America, who became Town Chairman of West Bend.
We’re standing on the site of the original Francis Gansel farm where the camp meetings were held, although now it is the Bicentennial Park in West Bend.
Rev. Cornell came down from Ripon as a guest speaker at the camp meeting, and on Sunday, the last day of the camp meeting, took a walk down the Milwaukee River just a mile to our east, over by the church building.
Many hymns come from personal tragedy. This hymn however comes from a time of happiness, reminding us that the same God who sends times of sorrow also sends times of joy. Rev. Cornell was so filled with joy after five days of camp meeting spent fellowshipping and eating with believers, testimonies, singing, and preaching, that the words flowed out of the overabundance of his soul. According to a couple of sources, as he walked, Rev. Cornell grabbed the back of an advertising flyer and penned these words along this river:
Far away in the depths of my spirit tonight
Rolls a melody sweeter than psalm;
In celestial strains it unceasingly falls
O’er my soul like an infinite calm.Peace, peace, wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above!
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray
In fathomless billows of love!
Rev. Cornell put the paper back in his pocket and walked back to the campground for the evening service, surrounded by His Father’s love
Back here at the campground, after the evening service, the host pastor, Rev. Cooper, was cleaning up the grounds when he saw a paper lying on the floor. He read the words, took the paper to the organ, and began composing a tune for the words. As he played on the organ, the words to another stanza began to form in his mind, this stanza an invitation to unbelievers to partake of this peace:
Ah soul, are you here without comfort and rest,
Marching down the rough pathway of time?
Make Jesus your friend ere the shadows grow dark;
Oh, accept this sweet peace so sublime!Peace, peace, wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above!
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray
In fathomless billows of love!
Three years later, in 1892, Rev. Cooper and his friend Robert McCabe published the hymn in their songbook, Pearls of Paradise, with the note, Dedicated to the M.E. Church, West Bend, Wisconsin, that hosted that camp meeting that gave birth to this beloved hymn, Wonderful Peace.
The Old Rugged Cross was written over a hundred years ago, and performed in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Friends Community Church has an outdoor memorial commemorating the first public performance of the hymn, and we take you there! #churchhistoryonlocation