Carols Round III

Posting this verse, I’m disproving my own theory that all the great old Christmas hymns were written by bible-thumping Protestants. The words to this carol were penned by a Catholic poet, at the request of his parish priest. The writer was so impressed with his own work, he sought out a friend to create a melody for them; a friend who just happened to be a popular composer of the day. A man who made a living composing scores for ballets and operas. That explains the hauntingly beautiful melody…certainly one of the loveliest of all Christmas songs.

This almost scores one for the musical sensibilities of the Catholic Church…except that, ten years after the song was written, and had become one of the most popular carols in France, the Church banned it because the lyricist had embraced socialism, and the composer was a Jew. In the end, the story serves to demonstrate all the more the pigheadedness and complete musical ineptitude of the Church when it came to songs written in anything that wasn’t Gregorian Latin.

Luckily for the song, it caught the attention of a Unitarian minister in Boston, who translated it into English. As an abolitionist, he was especially moved by the verse I have posted above. It became a Christmas anthem for the abolitionist movement in America during the Civil War.