I want to thank you folks for walking along with me on this wonderful path we have been on since Thanksgiving. As beautiful and meaningful as the songs are the stories behind them are even more telling of the power of a Baby born to be a Sacrifice and then a Savior. I think of the son of slaves, intent on preserving the music of his people. Without the efforts of John Work, Jr and his wife, most of those plantation songs given up in the fields to praise the Lord, would have been lost. I think of a young priest desperate to provide his congregation with some kind of music for Christmas Eve, and in his despair he created the most cherished of all the Christmas songs. I think of a pastor, known throughout this country, a man who sat with a president who was torn from all sides, a pastor who had reached the pinnacle of success in 1865, standing outside an old church in Bethlehem, weeping as the bells tolled on Christmas Eve. I think of three men who didn’t know each other and who, for the love of money, put together one of the most inspiring of the Christmas hymns.

         Several of these hymns were forged in the fire of war and later, on various Christmas Eves, those same songs were sung by both sides as memory, and hope, of better times. Sometimes it was illness, sometimes depression, sometimes desperation, sometimes an overwhelming urge to protect and preserve….whatever it was, there is deep human emotion buried within the words of the songs, an emotion that comes out even now, decades later. The plea of a man who had enough of war, writing “O come, all ye faithful” is understood by all believers. Peace exists only in Christ. We can understand the painful grief of a man who had lost so many that he loved, writing the words, “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!” But as Christians we also understand the release of his soul at the point of salvation.

         These songs stir our souls and cause our spirits to soar.

         There is a song I purposely left out. When I asked for favorites, this song was the most popular. I left it out because it isn’t a Christmas song. The first verse is about the Birth, but the whole song paints a complete picture of the Savior. And that is one of the problems with all of these Christmas songs. For some reason, everyone knows the first verse, but then we want to move on. That makes an inspiring hymn into nothing more than just a carol. It is the whole song that weaves the meaning of the author. And so it is with this song I left out. It is my favorite song of all. My favorite Christmas song is “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” but the words to the song I love the most are these;

1.   Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n, and heav’n, and nature sing.

2.   Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

3.   No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

4. He rules the world with truth and grace,
   And makes the nations prove
   The glories of His righteousness,
   And wonders of His love,
   And wonders of His love,
   And wonders, wonders, of His love.

         So, we have reached the end of our series. There are, of course, other Christmas hymns that we sing every year that touch our hearts, but these were the favorites. I deeply appreciate your participation in both the naming of your favorites and reading of these little stories. This was, for me, a labor of love. And this just leaves one more thing for me to say;

Merry Christmas, my friends. A new year is upon us, filled with uncertainty. Remember, however, that our joy, the joy that is indescribable, comes from the Lord. Blessings.

 

        As I was writing this, it occurred to me that some may not realize that there was a system to song writing back in the 16, 17, and 1800s that is totally different from today. I should have included this back in the first blog, but I never thought about it. First, you had the poet. This was the person wrote the words. Sometimes they were paid to write a poem on some subject and that would be all they would make from that poem. Sometimes they wrote a number of poems and then put them in a book of poetry and sold the book. But, once the poem was out there it was there for anyone to use. Copyrights on poetry just didn’t normally exist. Second, you had the music writer. They might be paid to write the music to a poem, thus making it a song. That was the end of their contribution to the process. Sometimes, particularly in Christian circles, the poet received no money for the poem because it was inspired in his or her mind. In the same way, the music writer of Christian music usually received no money for their work. In our hymnals it usually says WORDS BY and then gives a name, and then MUSIC BY and then gives another name. Many times the two did not know each other and even lived in different eras. If I were to ask who wrote the Star Spangled Banner, you might right away say Francis Scott Key. However, Key wrote the poem. Someone else wrote the music. Fanny Crosby has been called the greatest female hymn writer of all time, but she wrote the poems and someone else wrote the music. Sometimes you would have collaboration between poet and music writer. Fanny Crosby and Phillip Bliss in the US. In Germany, A priest named Mohr and a musician named Gruber sat in a musty, old church and wrote “Silent Night.” But it didn’t usually work that way. And sometimes, there was a third person involved. A translator. Someone who knew the original language that the song was written in and who had some training in poetry and music and could take a work written elsewhere and translate to their own mother tongue. “Silent Night” is an example of inspired translation into dozens of languages.

         So, that was your lesson for the day, given free of charge. Our next song has the poet, the music writer and the translator.  

         Does someone have to be inspired to write something inspiring? So far, we would have to say yes. Inspired by grief, by war, by necessity. Something has to stir the soul!

         Except…..not always. Sometimes God will use someone who has little interest in the things of the Spirit to bring about something that causes our spirits to soar. And so it is with this installment of the origins of Christmas songs.

            Three men, all non-believers and not all known to each other, managed to put together one of the most beautiful of our Christmas hymns.

         The first of these three was a Frenchman by the name of Placide Cappeau. He was born in the French town of Roquemaure in October 1808. His father’s business was making wine barrels, and like most boys, it was accepted that he would follow in his father’s profession. However, when he was eight years old, he was playing with a friend. The friend had slipped one of his father’s guns away unseen and somehow he managed to shoot young Placide in the right hand. Because of the damage, his hand had to be amputated, which ended the possibility of becoming a barrel maker. However, the playmate’s father was grieved by the whole thing and paid for the entirety of Placide’s education. As it turned out, he had a gift for writing poetry. This was just after the Napoleonic Wars had devastated Europe. France had lost millions of young men and was now, as a nation, impoverished. Placide’s writing skills in poetry helped take his fellow country men’s minds off of their misery.

         In 1843 the grand organ at the church in Roquemaure had been repaired after a long period of silence. This was an exciting thing in the small town. A celebration was planned very close to Christmas so that the organ could be played for the holiday. The parish priest contacted the town’s most famous character, Placide Cappeau, to write a special Christmas poem. However, Placide would have none of it. Karl Marx was just getting started with his doctrines on socialism and Placide had heard of it. He had always questioned why God would allow him to lose a hand, and with socialism in its infancy, he felt he had found something that gave him a belief system. He wasn’t an atheist, but he didn’t believe in traditional Christianity.

         However, the parish priest was persistent and finally convinced Placide to write the poem for a fee. Placide might have been a socialist, but money was money. The first line, translated to English, reads “Midnight, Christians, is the solemn hour.” Hardly a joyous start. Religion in France, at that time, was dreary as a whole since they were trying to pick themselves up after decades of war. Add to that the fact that Christmas was not the joyous time it is now. It was solemn and serious and, well, dreary. Particularly in Europe. So, Placide’s poem fit right into the mood.

         Four years later, a music writer named Adolphe Adam sat down and wrote the music to Placides poem, which had actually become somewhat well known. Adam was a famous writer of operas, and when he wrote the music to Placide’s poem, he wrote it in the opera style. Adolphe wrote the music to Placide’s poem, and to scores of other poems, to try and put together money to pay his debts.

         So, you had the poet who had no real religious belief and wrote a poem for a small fee and you had a composer who set it to music in the attempt to pay off debts. So far, it is all about the money. And then the song made its way to the United States of America.

         John Sullivan Dwight is the third person involved in the creation of this song.

         Dwight started out as a Unitarian minister. OK, everyone out there who knows what a Unitarian believes, raise your hand. Yes, just as I thought. None of you know. That is because Unitarians don’t believe much. Jesus was a prophet, but not God, nor God’s son. The Holy Spirit was not part of God, or the Trinity, but was a Godly attitude. The Bible was open to self interpretation. Whatever you wanted to believe, you believed.

         Born in Boston in 1813, Dwight was the son of physician. He had some interest in helping people and believed that the ministry was the way to go. He enrolled in the Harvard Divinity School and graduated in 1836, standing for ordination in 1840. But while at Harvard he had developed a love for classical music and for languages. He decided that ministry was not for him and instead began to follow a musical path. In this he became quite famous among the intellectuals of the day.

         As America moved closer and closer to civil war, Dwight’s work also changed. Greatly opposed to slavery, in his translations of music from Europe he fit his own ideas into the translation. This was easily done because Dwight used the original as a starting point only. The finished product sometimes bore little resemblance to the original. He translated Placide’s poem and Adam’s music into English in 1855. None of these men were believers. All three had socialist leanings. All three were willing to set aside socialism when it came to making a buck (or a franc, as the case might be). If you had brought these men together in, say, Paris and introduced them, they would have been likely to have spent the night in one form of debauchery or another.

         And yet, God has the ability to use unregenerate people to accomplish His will. Would Israel ever have been revived as a nation if Hitler had not launched the Holocaust and shamed the world into giving Palestine back to the Jews? God has His own plans. And one of His plans was to bring these three together, although it is likely they never actually met. And from this grouping came the song;

1.   Oh, holy night, the stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees, oh, hear the angel voices!
Oh, night divine, oh, night when Christ was born!
Oh, night divine, oh, night, oh, night divine!

2.   Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here came the wise men from Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials born to be our Friend!
He knows our need—to our weakness is no stranger.
Behold your King; before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King; before Him lowly bend!

3.   Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother,
And in His Name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy Name!
Christ is the Lord! Oh, praise His name forever!
His pow’r and glory evermore proclaim!
His pow’r and glory evermore proclaim!

         Amazing how the Lord works, isn’t it?

          John Wesley Work, Jr. was an interesting man. His parents were born into slavery and were freed with the Civil War. John, Sr. was, among other things, a song leader in a church. John, Jr. was born in 1871 in Nashville. He grew up with the harshest of racism. Many remembered the good old days when the black folks could be bought and sold and they always knew their place. As young John grew, he wanted more. When he accepted Christ, he became obsessed with succeeding in a white world and doing so in a Christian way. (Please understand, I know that the politically correct form is to refer to these folks as African-American. But we are talking about the late 1800s. It may offend some of you folks out there, but they were never called African-American. At the very best, they were referred as black or Negro. This was how they referred to those of their own race. Most whites had more derogatory words. I am not being disrespectful in this blog, just historically accurate in the language. John Wesley Work, Jr’s work becomes so much more impressive when we remember the times.)

         He grew up in the church, surrounded by music. Not the music most of us are familiar with, but with the powerful (if not always theologically correct) Negro Spirituals. He loved the music. But he also had an ear for languages.

         As he grew, he saw his friends go into the fields to work, drawing only a meager wage for their labor. John did some of that, too, but for himself he decided he was going to go to college. There were a lot of colleges in the country, but not a lot of colleges at the time that accepted black students. There were, however, black colleges that were excellent places to go for an education. One such school was Fisk University, located near Nashville. He enrolled in 1889 and was an excellent student. He majored in languages, focusing on Latin and Greek. He earned his Bachelor degree and then his Masters. He was considered such an expert in those languages that he earned entry into Harvard, an amazing thing for a black in the late 1800s. Eventually he headed back South and became a professor at Fisk.

         But he hadn’t abandoned music. While a student at Fisk he had also studied music. He became a recognized expert in Negro songs, ballads and Spirituals. He saw a need to save these songs before the march of time caused them to fade away. They were his heritage.

         The problem was that these songs were never written down. Some were unique to a particular plantation. Some were just sung in particular families. A large plantation might, or might not, have a black church. If they did the songs there might be written down, but even that was unlikely. Many of the churches in the South before the War had a left side and a right side, and then off of one side or the other a wall was built that went about three quarters of the way down the church. It was open so that the people (black folks) behind the wall could see the pulpit area but the white folks in the rest of the church could not be bothered to see the slaves. In those setting, the music was white folk music. "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" was probably a real toe-tapper. So, the black folks sang their songs, Spirituals or others, on the plantation. If you listen, you can detect the work nature of the songs. A rhythmic back and forth that would work for keeping the field hands in step with the work pace. Anyway, these songs were thought up by some worker on a plantation. The only way it moved on was if a slave was sold to another master. Then the song would be reworked to fit the new plantation.

         This is what young John, the educator, wanted to save. He met a young lady with a similar passion. The young Agnes Haynes was swept off her feet by John and was soon Agnes Work. Together they had six children. John also brought his brother, Frederick, into the search. In 1901 they were able to publish the New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. When that was published people began sending them songs that they remembered from plantation days. So, in 1907, they published the New Jubilee Songs and Folk Songs of the American Negro. For the most part, these songs had no formal music and it is thought that Work, himself, actually wrote the music for most of these songs, although he never took credit for that. At the most, he was listed as a collector.

         It was this second work that contained a Christmas song. For the slave, Christmas had been a time of worship. There was very little gift giving, but there would be a meal and a tie of thanksgiving. Imagine giving thanks for being a slave. But for the American slave, it was more. They knew that in time their suffering would be over and they would walk with the Lord. Hopelessness transformed to hope. This was the basis of what Work wanted to preserve. It was this Christmas song that found a real place, even in white society. Look at the words.

Refrain:
Go, tell it on the mountain,
Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain,
That Jesus Christ is born.

While shepherds kept their watching
Over silent flocks by night
Behold throughout the heavens
There shone a holy light.

Refrain

The shepherds feared and trembled,
When lo! Above the earth,
Rang out the angels chorus
That hailed the Savior’s birth.

Refrain

Down in a lowly manger
The humble Christ was born
And God sent us salvation
That blessed Christmas morn.

Refrain

         Something in the lyrics and the music appeals to all of us. And the message is clear; Go tell!

           Not all Christmas songs have the exciting or inspiring origins of of the ones we have looked at. Not all have their genesis in war. Some just sort of happened, and that can be interesting, too. They just manage to hold together for years before they get noticed. Perhaps it the Lord’s watch care

          During the Middle Ages there were little or no entertainments. Life was to be survived, not necessarily enjoyed. There were, however, traveling troubadours, a group of people, often a single family unit, that would travel from one village to the next, singing songs, putting on plays and sometimes doing tricks and juggling and acrobatics. People in the villages and from the farms would flock to see these people perform, whether they were any good or not. As the troubadours traveled around, they picked up new songs and acts. They were a talented people and they filled a much needed place in society.

This happened all over Europe, but for our purposes we are going to look at England.

Cornwall, England in the 17 and 1800s was an important maritime town. Some great sailors came from Cornwall during the age of sail. Some ship building was done there and a lot of repair work. But it is located with some other towns on a long peninsula and very much cut off from the rest of the country. It could be reached by sea or one could travel the roads through the peninsula. The problem with traveling the roads were the outlaws who patrolled those highways. It was a problem until the modern age. But our story does not originate in the 17 or 1800s. This story goes back to the 1300s, at least.

At that time, the small town was well isolated from the mainland. Rarely did anyone leave the area and even more rarely did anyone come to Cornwall. They developed their own culture, very much different from other Englanders.

At that time, England was a Catholic nation. Not a good Catholic nation, but a Catholic nation. As an island nation they were separated from the rest of Europe by the sea. Their worship style was different. Even more so in Cornwall, which was as isolated from the rest of England as England was isolated from mainland Europe. The people didn’t seem to mind that their worship inside the church was all in Latin, but they wanted songs in their own language. The church would not allow such things, so the people would gather in front of the church before the service and sing songs they actually wrote in their language. I say their ‘language’ rather than in English because the English of the 1300s bears little resemblance to the English of today. And Cornwall English could not be understood in London.

If there were troubadours in the area, they would be there at these singings to lend their own music and to listen for something that caught their ear. At a time when people lived in grass thatched hovels, no one thought much about copyrights. Music was for everyone. It was to be enjoyed. Often the troubadours would take a song and make it fit the next town, but the religious songs they took with them were added to as they went along. While the song might start in Cornwall, by the time it got to Falmouth, only about ten miles away, the song would have added a couple of verses to add to the story. And that is what the song did. It told a story. So hungry were the people for the Word! But all the worship was in Latin. If you did know how to read Latin, you might get to read the Bible in the church just a bit, but mostly you were not allowed even to read the Bible. Their theological understanding came from what the few Latin readers could tell them and from what their songs said. So these songs grew as they were taken from town to town to add to the tale.

It was in this environment that our Christmas song for today originated. ‘The First Noel.’ No one knows who wrote it. No one knows what the original melody was. And, surprisingly, no one knows what a noel is. There is no such word in any language. There are five or six words it might derive from. There is a Latin word that vaguely sounds like it and it means ‘start,’ but that is unclear. It has come to mean, to us, the birth of Christ. In the 1300s it no doubt had a meaning out there on the peninsula and that was enough. The early song spoke of the birth and it has always been about the birth. If you could hear the 1300 version of the song, you probably wouldn’t recognize it, but you would still be hearing the same story told now.

As the song made its way from Cornwall to London, 300 hundred miles distant, it went through many changes. Stanzas added, music altered, some of the theological mistakes rectified. Understand, the song didn’t travel a straight line to London. It creeped along, taking well over a century. During that time, England had split with the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England had taken over. John Wycliffe and Miles Coverdale had translated the Bible into English. English songs could be sung in church. ‘The First Noel’ became a standard.

But it was still open to change. Like many songs of time, verses could be added or taken away to fit the circumstance or location. The song at one time had twelve verses. Some manuscripts with the song have the word ‘Noel’ spelled ‘Nowell.’ In one part of England the word is changed to ‘O Well’ ‘O well, O well the angels did sing….’ Makes it sound different.  

Finally, in 1823, the song was published with words and music in a book called Some Ancient Christmas Carols. It still wasn’t standardized and so two men decided to do something about that. Davies Gilbert and William Sandys took it upon themselves to rework the song. One played with the music and the other played with the words. The result was a six verse song that talks about the shepherds and the wisemen. In researching this I came across a music pastor of a large church in the South of this country. Some of you might know his name. He attacks the song because of the theological mistakes. And there are a number of those. However, many of our favorite hymns have theological mistakes. Given where and how the song originated it would be a miracle if it didn’t have some mistakes. The old Negro Spirituals had theological mistakes for the same reason ‘The First Noel’ did. The people could not read the Bible for themselves. But I have heard the church where this music pastor is at sing some of those Spirituals. Doesn’t seem to bother him then. There is, with ‘The First Noel,’ a quiet power not unlike ‘Silent Night.

          Our hymnbook only has five verses, which is too bad. The sixth verse is the verse that makes it work for me.

1.    The first Noel the angel did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep,
On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.

o   Refrain:
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel.

2.    They looked up and saw a star
Shining in the east, beyond them far;
And to the earth it gave great light,
And so it continued both day and night.

3.    And by the light of that same star
Three* Wise Men came from country far;
To seek for a King was their intent,
And to follow the star where’er it went.

4.    This star drew nigh to the northwest,
Over Bethlehem it took its rest;
And there it did both stop and stay,
Right over the place where Jesus lay.

5.    Then entered in those Wise Men three,
Full reverently upon the knee,
And offered there, in His presence,
Their gold and myrrh and frankincense.

6.              Then let us all with one accord

          Sing praises to our heav’nly Lord

         That hath made heaven and earth of naught,

         And with His blood mankind hath bought.

I love that here is a song that had dozens of authors and yet survived with its story intact. What a blessing.

I hope you are enjoying this series and I hope that Christ is the most important part of your Christmas. Blessings to you.

          It seems as though war is the great spur of Christmas carols. There is, in the heart of people, a desire for conflict. We war against those who will not submit to us, we war against those who disagree with us, we war against those who attack us. We don’t even need a good reason. It can be small or large, just so long as we show who is boss. Two brothers in Kentucky went to war for twenty years over a dog. It only ended when one brother died. On the other hand, one man in Germany took socialism to its logical end and plunged the world into war.

          And, as there are many who view war as a way to settle things, there are others who are sickened by war and seek peace. This is where many of our Christmas carols come from. Has there ever been a carol for Christmas that talks about slaughtering enemies? Well, yes. A novelty song called “Christmas at Ground Zero.” My son claimed it was his all time favorite. But, almost 100% of Christmas songs proclaim peace.

          And sometimes songs can foster peace among adversaries.

          England has had a violent history. Wars between families and wars between invaders and wars between little fiefdoms. Once the Roman Empire left there was unrest and hatred that had been kept in check. Some of the bloodiest fighting came between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants. The same was happening throughout Europe, but in England the Protestants were mostly in control. Such conflict confuses us until we think of religion in our country. While in seminary I pastored Sandy Creek Baptist Church. Just down the road and across the bridge that spanned Sandy Creek, was Bridge Creek Church. On the other side of our church, just a stone’s throw away, was Hurricane Baptist Church. Three churches, all close, all Southern Baptist, and yet separate. Why? Well, one split was about a hog and one split had something to do with an ice cream social. Stupid, little things split churches.

Now, we would say that the difference between Catholicism and Presentism is pretty wide. But not in the case of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. They are virtually the same. When King Henry the Eighth wanted to divorce his wife and take another, the Pope would not allow it. So the British king cut all ties with the Catholic church and established the Church of England, which just used everything and everybody from the Catholic church in England. And then the Church of England turned on the English Catholics with a vengeance.

Many of the English Catholics fled to Scotland, which shares the British Island with England. There were Catholics in abundance and, since England had defeated Scotland in a series of wars, there were also Church of Englanders in abundance. These two factions warred among themselves. The Catholics wanted to win and then lead Scotland in a war with England and obtain Scottish independence. Are you lost yet?

Scotland actually tried to gain her independence. From the mid 1600s to the mid 1700s there was one battle after another. Loyalties changed, leaders came and went, but always there was the religion thing. Vast amounts of hatred in the name of God.

Enter into our story one John Francis Wade. No kin to me, as far as I know. We are looking at England and Scotland in 1745. My Wade family arrived into Virginia from England in 1694 and the Irish side, the Sullivans, a few years later. So, while John might be some kin, it is way, way back. Not only that, but John was a Catholic. A well known and highly regarded writer of religious papers, he could move seamlessly between the Catholics and the Church of England. They were doctrinally the same, so John was able to keep his Roman Catholicism pretty much hidden. Even now the Church of England regards him as one of the truly great hymn writers in their church. But eventually, around 1740, he headed for Scotland to help defeat the Protestants there.

Somewhere around 1743 he began to see the foolishness of it all. Atrocities and killings that never seemed to end, and for what? Frustrated, he sat down and wrote a poem, in Latin (he was Catholic, after all), about Jesus. Obviously, his point was that if we all believe, then why are we fighting? It was a plea to both sides. A year later, he wrote the music.

And it was picked up by both sides. The Church of England used English in their worship, so the poem was translated into English. The same tune, written by our friend John, is still used to this day. The Catholic church kept the Latin for worship services, but Catholics freely sang the English version in casual settings.

Christmas music prior to the 1700s was heavy and almost threatening. The common church attender had trouble following the Latin phrasing, and so they mostly sat and endured. But this song was different. It gave hope and peace and adoration to the Lord in a way no other song at the time could. We have talked about the great songs of Longfellow, Brooks and Mohr, but before their songs there was this song. It inspired them in their times and it still inspires today.

The song has six verses in the Latin and usually just three in English. But three is enough to rest our spirits.

1.    Oh, come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
Oh, come ye, oh, come ye, to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him, born the King of angels;

o   Refrain:
Oh, come, let us adore Him, oh, come, let us adore Him,
Oh, come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.

2.    Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation;
Oh, sing, all ye citizens of heav’n above!
Glory to God, all glory in the highest;

3.    Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born this happy morning;
Jesus, to Thee be all glory giv’n;
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;

You can see Wade’s thinking. First he calls for all the faithful, on both sides, come. Be joyful and triumphant in Jesus. All of us, let us adore Him.

Then in the second verse he is probably alluding to the choir of angels before the Shepherds. That triumph was greater than who would win their war.

And then in verse three, he is calling for all the faithful to greet the Lord. All glory goes to Him, and only Him.

Maybe it was because everyone was sick of war, or it might have been because a man sat down and wrote a hymn all could sing, but it was about this time that the fighting eased between Scotland and England. More religious liberty was given. People all over the world sing, in their language, this song.

Oh come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.