The Wondrous King

Author: Cecil Frances Alexander

As a small girl, Cecil Frances Humphries (b. Redcross, County Wicklow, Ireland, 1818; Londonderry, Ireland, 1895) wrote poetry in her school's journal. In 1850 she married Rev. William Alexander, who later became the Anglican primate (chief bishop) of Ireland. She showed her concern for disadvantaged people by traveling many miles each day to visit the sick and the poor, providing food, warm clothes, and medical supplies. She and her sister also founded a school for the deaf. Alexander was strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement and by John Keble's Christian Year. Her first book of poetry, Verses for Seasons, was a "Christian Year" for children. She wrote hymns based on the Apostles' Creed, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Ten Commandment… Go to person page >

Beyond the wicked [holy] city walls. Cecil F. Alexander. [Good Friday.] First published in her Narrative Hymns for Village Schools, 1859, No. 17, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines and headed, “Where they crucified Him." It is sometimes given as, "Beyond the holy city walls." This alteration destroys all the point and meaning of the hymn.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)