A young of­fi­cer in the Brit­ish ar­my turned away in hor­ror from the doc­trine of this hymn. His pride re­volt­ed, his self-right­eous­ness rose in re­bel­lion, and he said: “He would be a cow­ard in­deed who would go to hea­ven at the cost of ano­ther!” As the years rolled away this man rose to dis­tinct­ion and high rank in the ar­my, and he al­so learned wis­dom. In his last hours, as he lay on his death­bed, he re­peat­edl­y begged those near him to sing “O Christ, what bur­dens bowed Thy head,” call­ing it, “My hymn, my hymn!”

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A gun­ner of the roy­al ar­til­lery was at­tend­ing the Old Sol­diers’ Home in Wool­wich dur­ing the spring of 1886. The chief at­tract­ion to him at first was the night-school. From this he was event­u­al­ly led to join the Bi­ble-class and at­tend the Sun­day even­ing ser­vice in the Hall. See­ing that he looked ve­ry un­hap­py and that he lin­gered af­ter the meet­ing, one night, a work­er asked him if an­y­thing was troub­ling him. The tears came to his eyes at once, and he said: “I want to be a Christ­ian, but I am afraid that I am too bad.” He then told how on the pre­vi­ous Sun­day even­ing, when this hymn was sung, he was so over­pow­ered by the thought of what the Lord had en­dured for our sins that af­ter the first verse he could not sing. The sol­emn words were fixed in his mem­o­ry, and had trou­bled him all the week, un­til he came to the great Bur­den-bear­er.