Our Confidence and Joy Shall Be

Break forth, O beauteous heav'nly light,
And usher in the morning;
Ye shepherds, shrink not with affright,
but hear the angels' warning.
This child, now weak in infancy,
Our confidence and joy shall be,
The pow'rs of evil breaking,
Our peace eternal making.

Johann Rist, 1681;
tr. John Troutbeck, c.1887, alt.
Tune: ERMUNTRE DICH (8.7.8.7.8.8.7.7.)
Johann Schop, 1641;
harm. Johann Sebastian Bach (?), 1734




Ten Years Ago: Once in royal David's city

Nine Years Ago: Where is this stupendous stranger?

Six Years Ago: Hark! the herald angels sing

Four Years Ago: What child is this?

Three Years Ago: Angels we have heard on high

Two Years Ago: Good Christian friends, rejoice!

Phillips Brooks

The Reverend Phillips Brooks, priest and briefly Bishop of Massachusetts, is remembered today in the Episcopal liturgical calendar on the day of his death in 1894. He was born in Boston on December 13, 1835, where he lived most of his life.  After graduating from Harvard in 1855 he maintained a lifelong connection to the university, often preaching at Appleton Chapel and acting as an overseer (though he turned down the invitation to serve as a professor of Christian ethics). He would take Harvard students to Europe when he travelled there, and students also served as pallbearers at his funeral.

In 1869 Brooks became the rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston, and over the next several years a grand new church building was raised, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson and completed in 1877. It has been named as one of the Ten Buildings that Changed America in a PBS documentary. The novelist and historian Henry Adams, a second cousin of Brooks, wrote the novel Esther, about a young atheist who falls in love with Stephen Hazard, a clergyman involved in building a grand church. Hazard is assumed to be based on Brooks, and he and Esther become involved in an unfortunate relationship which ends when she refuses to marry him because marriage to an atheist would ruin his career. (Brooks himself never married either, though apparently there was no such affecting incident in his life).

Today, Brooks is most remembered as the author of O little town of Bethlehem, though in his own time it was his sermons which made him famous, published widely in periodicals and collected editions. His preaching reportedly brought thousands of people of all denominations to Trinity Church, and he is credited for inspiring the conversion of many, among them Helen Keller and the hymnwriter Eliza Scudder.

Several of Brooks' other hymns were written for special liturgical occasions, collected in Christmas Songs and Easter Carols (1910), though other verse by him has been included in hymnals over the years. Today's text was reportedly written on his last Sunday as rector of Trinity Church in 1891 before taking his seat as Bishop of Massachusetts. 

As once I listened came a word,
I knew not whence, I could not see;
But when my waiting spirit heard,
I cried, God, here am I, send me!

I turned, I went; along the way
That word was food and air and light;
I feasted on it all the day,
And rested on it all the night.

I wondered: but when soon I came
To where the word complete must be,
I called the wonder by its name:
for lo! the word I sought was thee.

Phillips Brooks, 1891; alt.
Tune: SOLOTHURN (L.M.)
Traditional Swiss melody;
arr. The English Hymnal, 1906

The statue of Phillips Brooks pictured above (you can click to see it larger), by sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens, stands outside Trinity Church in Boston's Copley Square. A service of dedication for the memorial was held in February 1910, at which this hymn was sung. The statue is glowingly described in contemporaneous written accounts, many calling it a "characteristic" pose, "majestic," "heroic," and other such adjectives. Anecdotal accounts, however, suggest that not everyone agreed, and that many people present could not recall Brooks ever raising his hand like that while preaching, while others did not understand that the cowled figure behind him was supposed to be Jesus, and found it rather ominous and threatening.



Eight Years Ago: Phillips Brooks

Another Brooks Hymn: God will send the angels

Shining in the East (Day Twelve)

The last of the Twelve Days of Christmas is upon us, and tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. The three mysterious visitors, only described in the second chapter of Matthew (whoever they may have been: kings, magi, "wise men," maybe not even men, maybe not even three), are on their way. We close our bloggy celebration of the season with a very familiar carol with a very obscure origin.

Sources are unclear as to just how old this carol may be. The text is first published in Some Ancient Christmas Carols (1823), collected by Davies Gilbert, and the text (somewhat altered) joined with this tune followed in Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern (1833). The version usually sung today is the harmonization by John Stainer, from Christmas Carols New and Old (1871). However, all these books were collecting carols from a long-running oral tradition, and scholars differ as to whether this one originally dates from the sixteenth century, or perhaps as early as the thirteenth century.

Apparently, since there isn't much to write about the source of this carol, the writers of hymnal companions have filled up their entries with other information: about the overall carol tradition (Episcopal Hymnal 1940), how they were used in Christmas observances (Lutheran Book of Worship), or even with editorial judgments ("this carol, as is the case with many carols, has little to commend it as a specimen of poetry" -- Presbyterian Hymnal 1933).  The congregation doesn't care; they always sing it heartily, whether on Christmas Eve, or closer to Epiphany (since the star-followers are so prominently featured).

The first Nowell 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.

Refrain
Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell,
Born is the Savior of Israel.

They lookèd 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.
Refrain

And by the light of that same star
Three sages came from country far;
To seek for a king was their intent,
And to follow the star wherever it went.
Refrain

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.
Refrain

Then entered in those sages three,
Full reverently upon the knee,
And offered there, in his presence,
Their gold and myrrh and frankincense.
Refrain

Traditional English carol, date unknown
Tune: THE FIRST NOWELL (Irregular with refrain)
harm. John Stainer, 1871

"Nowell," of course, is the old English version of the word, which seems more appropriate for this English carol than the French "Noel," though not all hymnal editors agree.



Seven Years Ago: Sound over all waters

Six Years Ago: Do you know the song that the angels sang?

One Year Ago: Where shall the Prince of Peace be born

When Love Fills All the Universe (Day Eleven)

The song the herald angels sang,
O’er Bethlehem’s starlit plain,
Still echoes in the hearts of earth,
A gladsome sweet refrain,
A gladsome sweet refrain.
Peace, peace on earth, good will to all,
Let justice reign supreme,
When love fills all the universe,
The past is but a dream.

Thro’ all these long millennia,
This song of peace and love,
Has breathed its balm of blessing,
And hovered like a dove,
And hovered like a dove.
Above the restless pulse of earth,
Bidding our sorrows cease,
Till war and strife are ended,
And nations dwell in peace.

Thro’ all the ages yet to come,
’Twill whisper sweet and low,
If we but love each other true,
’Tis heav’n begun below,
’Tis heav’n begun below.
And so with song and radiance,
The way will grow more bright,
Till the star that shines o’er Bethlehem,
Fills all the world with light.

Jennie Wayne, 1891; alt.
Tune: THE STAR AND THE SONG (Irregular)
Pluma M. Brown, 1897

Pluma Brown (1858-1940) was a hymnal editor as well as a composer - many of her tunes appear in the Song-Hymnal of Praise and Joy (1897) which she compiled.  Not all of the tunes are necessarily worthy of revival - even this one has a peculiar moment in the middle of the stanza (the repeated line). If I were republishing this tune I might just leave those measures out...



Six Years Ago: In the lonely midnight

One Year Ago: Love came down at Christmas

Full of Mercy, Truth, and Grace (Day Ten)

Is thy heart athirst to know
That the God of heav’n and earth
Deigns to dwell with us below,
Yea, hath stoop’d to mortal birth?
Search the Word with ceaseless care
Till thou find this treasure there.

With the sages from afar
Journey on o’er sea and land,
Till thou see the Morning Star
O’er thy heart unchanging stand,
Then shalt thou behold his face
Full of mercy, truth, and grace.

Jesus, let me seek for nought
But that thou shouldst dwell in me
Let this only fill my thought,
How I may grow more like thee,
Through this earthly care and strife,
To the calm eternal life.

With the wise who know thee right,
Though the world accounts them fools,
I will praise thee day and night;
I will order by thy rules
All my life, that it may be
Filled with praise and love of thee.

Laurentius Laurenti, 1700;
tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1863; alt.
Tune: SHERBORNE (7.7.7.7.7.7.)
William H. Monk, 1861

Six Years Ago: We three kings

One Year Ago: I think of that star of long ago

Whose Name Is Called Emmanuel (Day Nine)

For the ninth day of Christmas, we have an Incarnation text that seems almost too poetic to be used as a hymn, but I like it. The poet Dora Greenwell (1821-1888) wrote with "intense religious feeling," and may never have intended for her work to be sung, but hymnal editors find their material where they will. Greenwell's most well-known poem to be used as a hymn is I am not skilled to understand, which is used in many more hymnals from the last fifty years than it was in her own time.  Once one of your poems is taken up in a hymnal, others will usually follow.

And art thou come with us to dwell,
Our Hope, our Guide, our Love, our Word?
And is thy name Emmanuel,
God present with this world restored?

The heart is glad for thee! It knows
None now shall bid it err or mourn;
And o’er its desert breaks the rose
In triumph o’er the grieving thorn.

Thou bringest all again; with thee
Is light, is space, is breadth and room
For each thing fair, beloved, and free
To have its hour of life and bloom.

The world is glad for thee! the heart
Is glad for thee! and all is well,
And fixed and sure, because thou art,
Whose name is called Emmanuel.

Dora Greenwell, 1874
Tune: ST. ALKMUND (L.M.)     
Easy Music for Church Choirs, 1853

Dora Greenwell never felt that her poetry met her own high standards, but this opinion was probably not shared by her literary friends. She greatly admired the work of her friend Christina Rossetti, of whom she wrote:

Thou hast filled me a golden cup
With a drink divine that glows,
With the bloom that is flowing up
From the heart of the folding rose...




Eight Years Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

Seven Years Ago: Lo! how a Rose e'er blooming

Six Years Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

Four Years Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

One Year Ago: We celebrate the day

In This New Year of God (Day Eight)

Hush, all ye sounds of war, ye nations all be still,
A voice of heav’nly joy steals over vale and hill,
O hear the angels sing the captive world’s release,
For now is born in Bethlehem the Prince of Peace.

No more divided be, fear be discarded then,
Old enmity forget, old friendship knit again,
In this new year of God let kindred love increase,
For now is born in Bethlehem the Prince of Peace.

Anonymous, William H. Draper, 20h cent.; alt.
Tune: PRINCE OF PEACE (12.12.12.12)
Cyril E. Barker, 20th cent.




Eight Years Ago: Bessie Porter Head

Seven Years Ago: O God, by whom all change is wrought

Seven Years Ago: Mists and clouds and shadows

Six Years Ago: Another year is dawning

Five Years Ago: O God, whom neither time nor space

Four Years Ago: New mercies, new blessings, new light on our way

One Year Ago: Deck the halls with boughs of holly

John Robson Sweney (Day Seven)

Composer and songbook editor John R. Sweney (1837-1899) loved music all his life. He began teaching music in schools and leading Sunday School music as a teen, and a few years later began to study in earnest, taking lessons in piano and violin, while at the same time conducting a number of choral groups both sacred and secular.

It's estimated that he wrote tunes for more than a thousand gospel songs, and wrote texts for some of them as well.  He edited many songbooks for the firm of John J. Hood in Philadelphia, as well as a few other publishers, and collaborated with most of the famous songwriters of his day, including, of course, Fanny Crosby. It appears that this Christmas song by Sweney and Crosby was first published in Bright Melodies for the Sunday School and Young People's Societies (1899), though copyrighted a year earlier - probably in time for Sweney's Christmas celebrations in 1898.

Come away, the bells are calling,
Merry bells of Christmas time;
Youthful hearts again are bounding
While we catch their tuneful chime.

Refrain
Merry, merry bells, merry, merry bells,
Listen to their carol and the joy it tells;
Ringing far and near, ringing sweet and clear,
O the blessèd music of the old-time bells.

Come away, they still are calling,
While, to crown our festal scene,
Busy fingers now are twining
Wreaths of holly bright and green
Refrain

Come away, our faith is calling,
And we look with loving eyes
On a lowly manger cradle
Where the infant Savior lies.
Refrain

Fanny Crosby, 1898
Tune: BELLS ARE CALLING (8.7.8.7. with refrain)
John R. Sweney, 1898

Eight Years Ago: A year of precious blessings

Seven Years Ago: John Robson Sweney (with more Christmas Fanny Crosby)

Six Years Ago: William Orcutt Cushing

One Year Ago: The winter night was dark and still

The Loveliest Blooming Rose (Day Six)

This carol comes from the Kancional (1602) a songbook of the Bohemian Brethren collected by Tobias Zavorka Lipensky (1554-1612). It still appears in Lutheran and Mennonite hymnals today. Zavorka was a pastor in the Bohemian city of Doubrava (now in the Czech Republic), and his influential hymnal contained more than a thousand hymns, songs, and antiphons. The most information available about Lipensky online (which still isn't much) is found only in the Czech version of Wikipedia (though you can translate it with the button at the top of that page).

Let our gladness have no end,
Hallelujah!
For to earth did Christ descend.
Hallelujah!

Refrain
On this day God gave us
Jesus Christ, to save us;
Jesus Christ, to save us.

Prophesied in days of old,
Hallelujah!
Humbly born, as was foretold,
Hallelujah!

See, the loveliest blooming Rose,
Hallelujah!
From the branch of Jesse grows.
Hallelujah!
Refrain

Into flesh is made the Word.
Hallelujah!
Christ, our refuge and our Lord.
Hallelujah!
Refrain

Kancional, 1602; 

tr. unknown; alt.

Tune: NARODILSE KRISTUS PÁN (7.4.7.4. with refrain)

Bohemian carol, 15th cent.

P.S. - If you followed a Facebook link to get here you can click on the blog logo above to see the rest of the current Twelve Days of Christmas celebration.

Eight Years Ago: William Croft

Seven Years Ago: Music I love -- but ne'er a strain

Four Years Ago: Like the sound of many waters

One Year Ago: There's a star in the east

The Word Becomes Incarnate (Day Five)

A great and mighty wonder,
A full and holy cure:
A Mother bears the Infant
With virgin honor pure!

Refrain:
Proclaim the Savior's birth:
"To God on high be glory
And peace to all the earth!"

The Word becomes incarnate
And yet remains on high,
And cherubim sing anthems
To shepherds from the sky.
Refrain

While thus they sing your Ruler,
Those bright angelic bands
Rejoice, ye vales and mountains,
Ye oceans, clap your hands.
Refrain

And ancient forms shall perish,
And error shall decay,
And Christ shall wield his scepter,
Our Living God for aye.
Refrain

St. Germanus, c. 7th cent.
tr. John Mason Neale, 1862; alt.
Tune: ES IST EIN ROS' (7.6.7.6. with refrain)
Alte Catholische Geistliche Kirchengasäng, 1599

This hymn is still sung in some places, having survived mostly in Lutheran hymnals, though it predates Martin Luther by several centuries. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, is a saint in both the Eastern and Western churches. Some of his hymns, including this one, were translated from Greek by John Mason Neale in his Hymns of the Eastern Church (1862).

The tune is much better known for its match with Lo, how a rose e'er blooming, which still does appear in most modern hymnals. This popularity is at least partly responsible for the loss of Neale's translated text, as we rarely sing two different texts to the same tune for the same occasion.




Seven Years Ago: Go, tell it on the mountain

One Year Ago: All praise to thee, O Jesus Christ

Even Children the Anthem Ring (Day Four)

Peace upon earth! the angels sang,
Good will unto all! the chorus rang,
Glory to God! the Christ has come,
A bright star shines in the clear blue dome.

Refrain
Joyously sing, praises we bring,
Joyously sing, praises we bring!
Loud hallelujahs to Christ we sing!

Peace upon earth! ’tis sounding still,
Glory unto God, to all good will!
Bethlehem’s song, ’tis caught from far,
And lifted up, to that glowing star.
Refrain

Jesus has come! it echoes wide,
Thro’ valley and plain, on mountainside;
But not alone the angels sing,
For even children the anthem ring.
Refrain

Yes! let them sing, for Christ has laid
His hand with a blessing on their head;
Sweeter to him than angels’ tones
Are songs that come from the little ones.
Refrain

Julia A. Mathews, 1871
Tune: PEACE UPON EARTH (8.8.8.9. with refrain)
Robert Lowry, 1871

One genre that has all but disappeared in our modern Yuletide celebrations is the Christmas gospel song, though I have excavated a few in our two previous Twelve Days of Christmas outings (such as the one at the Seven Year link below), and there's at least one more coming up this season. Gospel songs, also known as Sunday School songs, were the contemporary Christian music of their day (peaking between 1870 and 1920 or so) and very few of the thousands of pieces written and published are still sung today, let alone those on the theme of Christ's birth.

Robert Lowry, who wrote both words and music at various times, does have some familiar songs that we still sing today, such as: Shall we gather at the river and Marching to Zion but I'd imagine that it's been many years since anyone sang this Christmas song which was published in his collection Pure Gold for the Sunday School (1871). He did manage to contribute one surviving gospel song to the Easter repertory: Low in the grave you lay.



Seven Years Ago: Peaceful the wondrous night

One Year Ago: Calm on the listening ear of night

Clasping Hands With Distant Ages (Day Two)

Now the joyful Christmas morning,
Breaking o’er the world below,
Tells again the wondrous story
Of the Christ Child long ago.
Hark! we hear again the chorus
Echoing thro’ the starry sky,
And we join the heav’nly anthem,
Glory be to God on high!

Out of every clime and people,
Under every holy name,
Is the everlasting Gospel
Good and glad for aye the same;
So we, in our happy Christmas,
Breathe the universal creed,
Clasping hands with distant ages
All in unity indeed.

Sing aloud, then, hearts and voices!
Shout, O new world, free and strong!
Hail of Light the deathless triumph,
Join the old world’s birthday song —
Glory be to God the Highest!
Peace on earth, good will to all!
’Twas the morning stars that pealed it —
Let the whole world heed the call.

Mary Noel Meigs, 1883; alt.
Tune: HARWELL (8.7.8.7.D.)
Lowell Mason, 1840

The appropriately-named Mary Noel Meigs published this hymn in Sacred Songs for Public Worship (1883), a Unitarian collection edited by Minot Judson Savage. I don't know her entire output, but the handful of her hymns that are listed at the Cyber Hymnal and Hymnary.org are all Christmas-themed.



Seven Years Ago: Good King Wenceslas

Two Years Ago: Saint Stephen

One Year Ago: While shepherds, watching flocks by night

To Gain the Everlasting Hall (Day One)

Good Christian friends, rejoice 
With heart and soul, and voice;
Give ye heed to what we say: News! News!
Jesus Christ is born today;
Ox and donkey humbly bow
To Jesus in the manger now.
Christ is born today! Christ is born today!

Good Christian friends, rejoice,
With heart and soul and voice;
Now ye hear of endless bliss: Joy! Joy!
Jesus Christ was born for this!
Christ has opened heaven's door,
And we are blessed evermore.
Christ was born for this! Christ was born for this!

Good Christian friends, rejoice,
With heart and soul and voice;
Now ye need not fear the grave: Peace! Peace!
Jesus Christ was born to save!
Calls you one and calls you all,
To gain the everlasting hall.
Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save!

Heinrich Suso, 14th cent.
para. John Mason Neale, 1853; alt.
Tune: IN DULCI JUBILO
German melody, 14th cent.

It seems likely that most new hymnals published in the twenty-first century are going to change the original "Good Christian men, rejoice..."

The German original text by Heinrich Suso began Nun singet und seid froh and Suso claimed that the text was given to him by angels who led him in a dance.  It was adapted and translated several different ways over the next few centuries until our old friend John Mason Neale discovered it in a book of medieval Latin texts published in Sweden called Piae Cantones (1582) and produced this rather free paraphrase. The tune was also adapted by Neale's colleague Thomas Helmore for their book Carols for Christmas-tide (1853). It was apparently an error in transcription by Helmore which added an extra two notes to the third line of each stanza that Neale had to fill (e.g. 'News! News!).

P.S. - Yes, 'Day One' at the top means that we are in for another Twelve Days of Christmas here at the blog, only one year after the last one.  Hymns, songs and such for the season will continue through the Feast of the Epiphany.

Eight Years Ago: Once in royal David's city

Seven Years Ago: Where is this stupendous stranger?

Four Years Ago: Hark! the herald angels sing

Two Years Ago: What child is this

One Year Ago: Angels we have heard on high

The Angels' Song Still Rings in the Height

Like silver lamps in a distant shrine,
The stars are sparkling bright;
The bells of the city of God ring out,
For the Child of Mary is born tonight.
The gloom is past, and the morn at last
Is coming with orient light.

No earthly songs are half so sweet
As those which are filling the skies,
And never a palace shone half so fair
As the manger-bed where our Savior lies;
No night in the year is half so dear
As this which has ended our sighs.

The stars of heaven still shine as at first
They gleamed on this wonderful night,
The bells of the city of God peal out,
And the angels’ song still rings in the height,
And Love still turns where the Godhead burns,
Veiled in flesh from earthly sight.

Faith sees no longer the stable floor,
The pavement of sapphire is there,
The clear light of heav'n streams out to the world,
And the angels of God are crowding the air,
And heav'n and earth, through the Christ-child's birth,
Are at peace on this night so fair.

William Chatterton Dix, 1867; alt.
Tune: THE MANGER THRONE (Irregular)
Charles H. Steggall, 1867




Eight Years Ago: It came upon the midnight clear

Seven Years Ago: While shepherds watched their flocks by night

Six Years Ago: Jesus our brother, strong and good

Four Years Ago: Silent night, holy night