No one could possibly enter an Anglo-Catholic Church without realising that the Cross is absolutely central in our religious system. It is everywhere displayed—on our steeples, on our altars, over our pulpits and confessionals, above the memorials of our departed. The sign of the Cross was made on our foreheads at our Baptism, the priest constantly signs it over us in blessing, and we delight to trace it on our own bodies day by day. Often the Cross in our churches has a figure of Christ hanging on it, and it is then called a Crucifix. The purpose of this tract is to explain the meaning of the Crucifix, and to show why we Catholics love and honour it so much.

Consider, then, what it is that the Crucifix portrays. It is a pictorial sermon, which sums up in a beautiful and touching symbol the essence of the Christian religion. It preaches to the eye as a sermon preaches to the ear; and in particular it proclaims three great central Christian truths.

1. First, it proclaims the wonderful love of God. As one of our hymns beautifully expresses it.

“Inscribed upon the Cross we see,
In shining letters, ‘God is Love.’”

It is not always easy to believe in the love of God; indeed, at times it is so hard as to be all but impossible. There are all the problems of pain and [1/2] sorrow and bereavement to tempt us to doubt it. Which of us has not cried in some moment of acute bodily pain, or mental stress, or sorrow of heart, with all the bitter agony of soul-shaking; doubt, Can God, really love me when he lets me suffer so much? In the ordinary sorrows and difficulties of daily life; there is evidence enough to stagger the strongest faith in the love of God except for one thing, the Cross of Jesus. Remember the Saviour’s words: “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.” Remember the words of St. Paul: “Scarcely for a righteous man would one die, but perchance for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth [i.e., proves] his own love towards us is that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.’”

Yes, the death of Christ upon the Cross is the everlasting proof of the love of God. His death is different from that of any other martyr who gave his life for his fellows, because he himself is different from any of the sons of men. It is the Incarnation which gives its supreme value of the Cross as a proof of the love of God. If Jesus was only the best man who ever lived, if the last that was seen of him was when he was put in the grave, then his death is only a proof of his own love for mankind, it is no proof of the love of God. In fact, it is, if anything, only one more indication that God does not love us, for then the dying Christ was only one more martyr, left unhelped to die in darkness and in pain, and his faith in the Father to whom he commended his soul was nothing but a tragic delusion.

[3] But if the Catholic Gospel be really true; if Christ be very and eternal God; if in the Incarnation God emptied himself of his glory, and took upon him the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross if God was in Christ so completely and in such fashion that the character of Christ is the character of God, his acts God’s acts, his sacrifice God’s sacrifice-—if, in a word, God is giving us Christ gave us his all because he gave us himself, then in the face of so wonderful a proof we can no longer doubt, in spite of all the difficulties in nature and experience, that God does really love us.

2. Secondly, the Crucifix proclaims the Divine Forgiveness. It hangs in our churches to remind the Faithful that the Christian Gospel is a Gospel: of Redemption from the guilt and power of sin. I do not think it is unjust or unfair to say that-among those who call themselves Liberal Evangelicals or Modernists the doctrine of the Atonement has altogether lost the prominence it held among old-fashioned Protestants, and is tending to sink further and further into the background. But the Catholic compass never swerves in its direction. Its needle always points to Calvary, held there by the magnetic attraction of him who said: “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” Christ is much more than an example or a teacher, he is a Saviour who came into the world to save sinners, and who has put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. We glory in the Crucifix because it preaches the glad news of pardon. He who hangs on it is a Saviour from sorrow, but he does not take his [3/4] name, of Saviour from that. “His name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” How Christ’s death and sufferings availed for our forgiveness we do not know, and it is idle and sometimes dangerous to speculate. Many theories about it have been current at different times, some of them unreasonable, some of them immoral, none of them entirely satisfactory. But we are not saved by any theory of the Atonement, we are saved by the fact; and the fact that “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself,” and that there is a real connection between the death of Jesus on the Cross and the forgiveness of our sins, ‘answers to the deepest instincts and the deepest needs of the human heart. It is the Cross and the Cross alone which throughout the ages of Christian history has brought peace and comfort to the hearts of sinners, and given them power to conquer their sins and to rise to higher and nobler life.

3. Once more, the Crucifix proclaims the power of self-sacrifice. It teaches us that self-sacrifice is the finest thing in the world, and by far the most fruitful both for ourselves and for others. For beyond all question the greatest thing in the life of Christ, that by which he achieved most for the world, is not his teaching or his example, but his death. “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me; this he said, signifying what death he should die.” And won by the irresistible attraction of his supreme generosity, the human race has gathered round his feet. The Cross, which was the symbol of shame, has become a symbol of [4/5] triumph; the gibbet has been transformed into a Throne. How has it come about that that which was once the token of a degrading death, all and more than all that the gallows is. to us, should now be the” most sacred and revered symbol in the world? It is because it is the symbol of the supreme act of self-sacrifice, which proves God’s love and guarantees his forgiveness. “Christ humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross, wherefore” (not in spite of, but because of that abasement) “God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on the earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Let us, then, glory in the Cross of Christ as the symbol of all that is best and noblest in our religion. Let us love it, and honour it, and gaze on it with grateful and penitent devotion. And let us ourselves use the sign of the Cross, not fearing the charge of formalism, for surely there need be no more formalism in the use of signs than in the use of words. Tertullian, who lived towards the end of the second century, tells us how universal the practice was among Christians in. his day:

“At every step and movement, whenever we come in or go out, when we dress and put on our shoes, at bath, at table, when lights are brought in, on lying or sitting down, whatever [5/6] employment engages our attention, we sign ourselves with the sign of the Cross.”

To use the holy sign as often as that would not be practicable or even desirable to-day. But we can at least use it in our worship and in our prayers, as an aid to devotion, a reminder of the love, the forgiveness, and the self-sacrifice of God, a symbol of lofty duty and unfailing comfort, to wake in our hearts a more fervent love and loyalty to Jesus.

“Lo, I sign the Cross of Jesus
Meekly on my breast:
May it guard my heart while living,
Dying, be its rest.

Hail the Sign, all Signs excelling,
Hail the Sign, all ills dispelling,
Hail the Sign, Hell’s power quelling,
Cross of Christ, all hail!”