There Is A Green Hill Far Away Mp3 Download
Azarias Alvarez
"There is a green hill far away" is a Christian hymn, originally written as a children's hymn but now usually sung for Passiontide. The words are by Cecil Frances Alexander, and the most popular tune by William Horsley.[1]
There is another reason this hymn remains in my memory. Whenever I think of it, I also think of a picture that hung in the entranceway of our house on Bennochy Road, the manse as it was called (or parsonage), where the pastor of St. Clair Street Church of Christ would live with his family. This picture was a reproduction of a massive painting by the Polish artist Jan Styka depicting the scene on Calvary, the place of the skull, Golgotha, as Christ is about to be crucified. Styka painted the picture in 1894. It is some 195 feet by 45 feet, and hangs today in Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in Glendale, California. The reproduction that hung in the manse entryway in Kirkcaldy was very modest in size, but still large enough so that I could pick out the details. Christ stands between the two crosses already erected for the thieves and beside the cross he will be nailed to, which lies on the ground. The hill is barren and rocky and crowded with soldiers and people and at the base of the hill is Jerusalem inside its wall. The hill itself is anything but green. But in the distance, there is a line of green hills. In the scene as Styka depicted it, the hills seem very far away.
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.
Just to the left of that, a huge table-like bluff slanted down towards the ocean on one side and led into waves of rolling green hills on the other. My eyes made out tiny white sheep speckling the landscape, munching on all that grass until the hills met bigger mountains, this time covered in dark green forest.
You can go no further, the sign warning you off of privateland, so you head down the hill away from the ocean, descending steeply throughthe field and back into the forest, back to the stream and the little bridgeacross it.
I often thought that the cross on which Jesus was nailed was lifted high so all men could look on him, hence the hill with a tall cross on top. But the more I thought about it the more I came to another view. If you were hung on a cross, suspended there with nails in your hands and feet, it would hurt like blazes. You do not have to be ten feet in the air for your pain threshold to be met. No, just a foot off the ground would be enough. Enough for your pain and suffering to be observed by all those who came to Jerusalem and who wanted to take a good long look at you.
I always wondered why you would expect a green hill to have a city wall. It's an old use of "without" to mean "outside". It has died out in England, but when I did my post-graduate work in Edinburgh, I discovered that the Scottish say "outwith" still.
Green Hill Park is 224 acres on the Roanoke River with ballfields, a paved section of Roanoke River Greenway, a river access spot, a handicapped fishing pier, picnic shelters, a playground, and an equestrian center. Hidden away on the hillside are the Green Hill Park trails. These natural surface trails provide the opportunity to hike and mountain bike in the cool woods and to enjoy abundant wildflowers. The trails provide loop options and connect to the top of the equestrian jump field, where fabulous views lie in every direction. Horses are not allowed on the trails.