Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone

DESCRIPTION: Chorus: "My heart's been fixed, My mind's made up, In Thou I live for him." Verse: "Must Jesus bear the cross alone And all the world go free, No there's a cross for every one And there's a cross for me"
AUTHOR: (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1898 (Date)
KEYWORDS: nonballad religious Jesus
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE) West Indies(Trinidad)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Gainer-FolkSongsFromTheWestVirginiaHills, p. 204, "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Henry Date, Pentecostal Hymns Nos. 1 and 2 Combined (Chicago: Hope Publishing Company, 1898 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")) #292 p. 217, "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ira D. Sankey, Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos (1200 Hymns) (London: Collins, 1921?), #610, ("Must Jesus bear the cross alone") (1 text)
RECORDINGS:
Albert A. DeBique and Mt. Tabor Spiritual Baptist Church congregation, "Jesus On the Cross Alone" (on WITrinidadBaptistMusic01)
Gullah Kinfolk, "Me Heart Dun Fixt" (on USSeaIsland04)
NOTES [276 words]: The pattern of the Gullah Kinfolk recording is common to "shouts": a verse of what is often a Sankey hymn, and a chorus that may or may not be from Sankey.
The Herskovits Trinidadian Spiritual Baptist account of "Jesus Lover of My Soul" fits the USSeaIsland04 track as well. This is a Sankey hymn, and the writers of the WITrinidadVillage02 liner notes would characterize this track as "Sankey into Shout." - BS
According to William Reynolds, Companion to Baptist Hymnal, Broadman Press, 1976, pp. 143-144, the original version of the first stanza of this read
Shall Simon bear the cross alone,
And other saints be free,
Each saint of thine shall find his own,
And there is one for me.
This appeared in Thomas Shepherd's 1693 "Penitential Cries." Reynolds does not state who "Simon" was (Simon of Cyrene, who was made to carry Jesus's cross according to Mark 15:21, etc.? Simon Peter?), nor who substituted "Jesus." (Perhaps someone who read the Gospel of John, which says in 19:17 that Jesus alone carried his cross?) The other verses come from other sources, and apparently were assembled by George N. Allen, who published a three-verse version in 1844 in "The Oberlin Social and Sabbath School Hymn Book." Thus Allen, although not exactly entitled to the name "author," is responsible for the hymn as it is known. Allan apparently did compose the tune "Maitland."
Reynolds, p. 425, says that Shepherd (1665-1739) was an Englishman who originally belonged to the Church of England but left it in 1694 to lead an independent congregation in Nottingham. In 1700, he moved to another congregation, in Bocking, Essex, where he worked until his death. - RBW
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