The Ruthwell Cross and the Story it has to Tell. 121 



Was I there with blood bedabbled 

 Gushing grievous from his dear side 

 When his ghost he had uprendered. 



Christ was on rood-tree 



But fast, from afar 



His friends hurried 



To aid their hero sufferer. 



Everything I saw there 



Sorely was I 



With sorrows harrowed. 



With shafts all wounded 

 Down lay they him' limb-weary. 

 O'er his lifeless head then stood they 

 Heavily gazing at heaven's chieftain. 



This brings us to the end of the interesting and romantic 

 record of the history of our ancient and famous Cross, which is 

 visited and studied, during the summer and autumn months, by 

 an increasing number of students and tourists from every 

 quarter of the globe. To thirty generations of Scotchmen, 

 Catholic as well as Protestant, it has delivered its simple but 

 telling message of the life and death of Christ, the Saviour of 

 mankind. To thirty generations more it may continue to tell 

 the same life-giving story of Him who " made peace through the 

 blood of His Cross." It is now recognised to be no longer the 

 exclusive property of any one branch of the Church of Christ, 

 but of Christianity at large. It is a unique memorial of the piety 

 and devotion and true artistic feeling of the first great Christian 

 age in Britain, and century after century it has unceasingly 

 testified, through good report and ill, of the Life and the Passion 

 of Christ. 



It is right to menti'jn for the information of those 

 students who are at a distam^e from the original Cross that an 

 excellent plaster cast was made for the Royal Scottish Museum, 

 Edinburgh, in 1894. Copies of this were afterwards made and 

 are now to be found in the South Kensington Museum, in the 

 Art Galleries, Glasgow, in Dublin, in Dundee, and in the 

 Bishop's Library at Durham. 



