It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth good will to men,
From heaven's all-gracious King."
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.
One of the first Christmas hymns written by an American writer and published in the Christian Register in 1849, "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" emphasizes the social implications of the angels' message: achieving peace and good will toward our fellowmen in the midst of social difficulty. The writing of this text occurred at a time in American history when there was much unrest, including the foreboding of the tensions between the North and Southern States, social upheaval due to industrial revolution, and the time of the "Forty-Niner" gold rush.
The hymn text was considered to have addressed these difficulties, urging folks to listen once again to the angels singing. The final stanza is a verse of hopeful optimism: "When peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling, and the whole world gives back the song, which now the angels sing."
Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears was born on April 6, 1810, in Sandisfield, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard Divinity School and spent life pasturing small Unitarian Churches in Massachusetts. Many were surprised that Edmund Sears, a Unitarian (believer in religious tolerance and support of liberty of conscience), could write such a fine text surrounding Christ's nativity. He was viewed to be more a Unitarian in name than by conviction, for he believed and preached the deity of Christ from his pulpit.
Sears was a quiet man who shunned the public. He preferred to live in small towns with small congregations where he could devote most of his time to studying, thinking, and writing. When he was 24, Sears wrote a carol titled Calm on the Listening Ear, which was inspired by the text of Luke 2:13-14 “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
Fifteen years later the United States was on the cusp of the Civil War. Sears once again returned to his theme of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” His second attempt at the song proved to be more popular than his first. However, today’s singers do not grasp the depth of his emotion at that point in history since the stanza that contextualizes it is usually omitted.
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world hath suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love song which they bring:
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!
Dresden
For info on another of my favorite carols, click here.
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