Emphasis Preaching Journal
The late Rev. George Bennard...
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The late Rev. George Bennard composed "The Old Rugged Cross" in the mid-teens of this century. According to all the polls, that hymn became America's most favorite. He was my visiting preacher and house guest on two occasions in the late 1940s and early '50s. He told me things he had shared with few others, things which had cut and shredded his life when he was a young Methodist pastor in a small Michigan town. His personal tragedy had so crushed him that he fled into hiding. Having "no dwelling place," in this world anymore, he had "no roots." Those were his words.
