Posted on 12/25/2013 1:00:58 PM PST by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
Exactly 150 years ago this Christmas Day, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem “Christmas Bells.” It would later provide the lyrics for the familiar carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”
Most of those who love the song – which has been recorded by arists ranging from Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Kate Smith to Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Ann Margaret – know little about its backstory.
Indeed, the lyrics actually were written by Longfellow during a time of despair.
The poet had learned that his first-born son, Charles, a lieutenant in the Union Army during the Civil War, was severely wounded in the Battle of New Hope Church in Paulding County, Georgia.
That heartbreaking news arrived while Longfellow was still grieving the loss of his beloved wife, Fanny, who died from burns she sustained in a fire in their Cambridge, Massachusetts home.
Longfellow’s melancholia over his family tragedies and his sorrow over the deaths of so many of America’s sons during the Civil War came across in the penultimate stanza of “Christmas Bells”:
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 Longfellow does not leave it there. The poet appears to have suddenly been filled with the Holy Spirit. For in his final stanza he proclaims:
Then peeled 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.”
This has been for those of us who are Christ followers a most trying year. Our traditional, Bible-based values have been under assault on many fronts.
The atheists mock our faith this Christmas with 52 billboards in the state capital of California that tell us our God is a fairy tale. A cable channel bows to pressure from a homosexual activist group and suspends the God-fearing star of its most-popular series for daring to speak the truth. And the supposed leader of the free world says nothing as Christians are persecuted throughout the Muslim world.
But as Longfellow wrote 150 years ago today, God is not dead. Nor is He asleep. The unGodly element in this country ultimately will fail. And the Right will prevail, by God.
Thank you for this!
How about one from the Left-—
Silence the Right, darken their light,
All Neocons, are not very bright,
Glorious streams from Lenin and Marx,
Sung for us Liberals in Rap and Hard Rock,
Weed is such heavenly peace, ....eace..
Feel joy in ‘equality’..
Heard the Bells on Christmas Day is my all time favorite seasonal song.
Then from each black, accursed mouthYoutube features a version of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" that includes all of the verses and is set to the tune "Waltham," although I'm not crazy about its "modern" arrangement. You can listen to it if you click here.
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.
The Anvil Of God’s Word
by John Clifford
Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
When looking in, I saw upon the floor,
Old hammers worn with beating years of time.
“How many anvils have you had,” said I,
“To wear and batter these hammers so?”
“Just one,” said he; then with a twinkling eye,
“The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.”
And so, I thought, the anvil of God’s Word,
For ages, skeptics blows have beat upon;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed - the hammers gone.
God is not dead,
nor does he sleep.
The Wrong will fail
The Right prevail
With Peace on Earth
Good will to men.
Merry Christmas and thank-you.
Right before New Year’s Day, and in the few weeks after the Newtown school massacre, my parish choir and I sung this special song, the Casting Crown version. Very haunting yet very healing indeed.
More than values are under assault.
Christians are literally being killed in some countries. And....In the U.S., while there isn't mass murdering of Christians specifically, Christians are being fired from their jobs and their businesses shut down because they are steadfast in their beliefs.
Great story — I had no idea that it was a Longfellow poem.
My favorite line:
**Then peeled 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.”**
“This has been for those of us who are Christ followers a most trying year. Our traditional, Bible-based values have been under assault on many fronts.
The atheists mock our faith this Christmas with 52 billboards in the state capital of California that tell us our God is a fairy tale. A cable channel bows to pressure from a homosexual activist group and suspends the God-fearing star of its most-popular series for daring to speak the truth. And the supposed leader of the free world says nothing as Christians are persecuted throughout the Muslim world.”
Well as we get closer to 2014, I do predict things are going to turn around, it not start now already. The channel in questioned restored that “God-fearing” star on “Duck Dynesty”, bowing to pressure by DD fans. The Vatican has at last a Pope that truly preaches from scripture and lives by it in his time in Papal leadership. The country of Iraq just made Christmas a national holiday. The so-called leader of the free world is looking more and more everyday like the “lame duck” he is sure becoming.
I view it as a glass only half full.
Please see posting number 13. Thank-you.
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I would love to have heard that. Merry Christmas!
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