During Advent of 2021 I wanted to do something special. We had survived COVID the year before and most of that panic and fear had dissipated. We were all a little older and a little wiser, which is to say we had come to really distrust government. For Christians, most had grown in our faith because we had found there was very little else we could trust in. It was, at least where I was, an awakening of sorts. As I thought on these things I came upon the idea of telling the stories of our special Christmas music. I know it was just two years ago, but a lot has changed. This is a good time go back and visit a few of these stories. Until Christmas Day, I will rerun one of those blogs on Mondays. And then, the Thursday before Christmas, I will give you folks the writing that gave me the most pleasure ever to write. During this Advent season, I will write a new blog, so it will not be all reruns. Having said all of this, from Advent of 2021, our songs of faith that proclaim the power and majesty of our Lord.
It began as a poem written by Henry W. Longfellow called “Christmas Bells.” Longfellow was perhaps America’s best known poet. Personally, I prefer Robert Frost, but I actually remember him before he died. And he wrote the poem that I often think of as my life path. But Longfellow always seemed as though he had come from ancient times. We had an English teacher who insisted we memorize some of his poetry. If we could have just read it, that would have been fine. But we had to memorize!
One year in seminary, as Christmas neared, one of our professors assigned us various Christmas songs to do backstories on. He had a long list and was assigning a song to each student. I desperately wanted “Silent Night” because I knew the backstory already, but I drew “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” instead. AGH! Longfellow! But since I had this notion that I might one day want to graduate, I took the assignment with a smile.
Once I got into it, I was fascinated.
Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine in 1807. He grew up with a love of country that was, at that time, a hallmark of New Englanders. His first wife died during a miscarriage and he then married his beloved Frances after a pursuit that took years. Fanny, as she was known, was so loved by Longfellow that he once said that the only thing he loved more than country, was Frances. For the first 20 odd years of his adult life he taught at a college level and wrote poetry on the side. Eventually, in 1854, he retired from teaching to concentrate on writing and spending time with Fanny.
It is said that as the war clouds preceding the Civil War came, he went into a depression. His country, that he loved intently, was tearing itself apart. Frances despaired over her husband’s anguish. She would drag him off to various entertainments, hoping music and laughter would revive his spirit, but to no avail. Finally, in April of 1861, war actually came. His sadness was profound.
On July 9, 1861, Fanny was putting locks of her children’s hair in envelopes and sealing the envelopes with hot wax. (I didn’t know about this practice, but I guess it was pretty common.) The fashion at the time was for women to wear the large hooped skirts that we see in pictures of the time. These were known as crinoline skirts and were all puffy and lacey and frilly. They were made in such a way as to disguise a woman’s form and thus keep men from lusting after them. (I kid you not.) It was the Victorian era, after all, and New England women were largely influenced in fashion by what was worn in London and Paris. Under these dresses a woman wore a tight corset that she had to be tied into, and then she was tied into the dress. The dresses were made frilly by the use of certain chemicals, including arsenic, that made the cotton very light. The problem of these dresses was that some women died from arsenic poisoning and, because the chemicals made the dresses so flammable, many died when the dress caught fire and it couldn’t be removed fast enough. These things were worn as everyday dresses in New England. In one year over 3,000 women died in dress fires!
Fanny was thus attired, and as she was melting wax for the envelopes, her dress caught fire. Longfellow, hearing her screams, rushed into the room. She was already on the floor, totally engulfed in flame. He threw a small rug over her, but it wasn’t big enough. So, he covered her body with his, beating the flames out with his hands. She was horribly burned and died the next day. Longfellow’s own burns were extensive. He was in bed for a long time, even unable to go to his wife’s funeral. His hands were disfigured and he had burn scars all over the front of his body. His face was so burned that he eventually grew a scraggly beard to cover the scars. Already in the grip of depression, he sank even lower.
Then, his oldest son, Charles, informed him that he was joining the Union Army. Longfellow forbade it, but the young man joined anyway. In late 1863, Longfellow received word that Charles had been mortally wounded in battle and was being moved to a military hospital in Washington DC to die. Longfellow journeyed by train to the Capital. There he found his son would most likely live, but the injury was quite bad and required a long recovery period. Now, completely covered in grief and sorrow, he determined that life was not worth living. When he went to bed on Christmas Eve, he was determined that it would be his last night on earth. He would die by his own hand on Christmas.
As the first rays of light graced the sky on Christmas morning, the city’s church bells began to ring. Lying there in his bed, he listened, and then went and opened the windows to hear better. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia had invaded the North that year, getting very close to Washington DC before being beaten at Gettysburg. People were scared, people were losing hope. But there, on Christmas morning, the bells announced, once again, the birth of the Savior. Using his crippled hands as best he could, he wrote the words to the song we know now. As a poem, it had seven stanzas. Eight years later, when it was put to music by Jean Baptiste Calkin, Calkin shortened it to five. He considered the other two as to be too dark for Christmas. These are the words to the poem, “Christmas Bells.” I will put the stanzas Calkin took out in italics. Think, as you read, how the realization of Christ was like food and drink to someone who was starving.
Christmas Bells
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The Carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!’
The magnificent story of our Savior brings peace even into the most troubled soul.
