The Christmas season is world-renowned as a time of joy, peace, and goodwill to all. Truly, this time of year has given birth to many of our most cherished Christmas hymns. One of the oldest Christmas poems to be set to music is “Christmas Bells” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. While most hymns trumpet the birth of Christ with a joyful and triumphant theme, this poem that was later set to music was one born of heartache. On December 25, 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a painful portrait of a man overwhelmed with grief. After unexpectedly losing his wife a few years earlier in a house fire that left Longfellow himself permanently disfigured, he learned on Christmas Day that his son had been wounded in battle. Longfellow’s son, who was fighting in the Civil War as a Union soldier, had been struck by a bullet that potentially would leave him paralyzed for life.
Laden with these sorrows, Longfellow wrote a seven-stanza poem that eventually would be shortened to its more well-known five-verse Christmas hymn. The two stanzas that usually are omitted from the pages of hymnals or are left out of the sweet verses sung by Christmas carolers are the stanzas referring to the Civil War itself. The nation was divided as it had never been before, and many wondered if this nation would survive such a conflict. The turmoil without was evidenced by turmoil within when Longfellow’s poem transitioned from the joyful tone of church bells on Christmas Day to the ominous chords of cannon fire in battle. The jarring change in the rhythm and cadence of this poem illustrates the depths of pain that he and the nation must have felt on this Christmas Day during wartime. “Christmas Bells” opens with the familiar words from which the poem itself takes its name:
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
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!
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!”
Then pealed 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.”
Notably, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ended his poem with the only answer that can resolve any conflict: peace on Earth. In the mid-1800s, the thought of peace on Earth was a foreign one at best and an unattainable one at worst. How could a nation so deeply divided come to a consensus of peace? How could a resolution of such differences be achieved in such a young nation struggling to find her place in the world? Throughout the pages of history, there has been only one way to bring a reconciliation to wounds that run so deep that they savagely scar a land. At the close of this poem, the only comfort that Longfellow could find on that dark, cold Christmas Day was the comfort found in the One Who gives peace. Regardless of the circumstances that Longfellow and the nation faced in 1863, peace on Earth could be found in the One for Whom we celebrate Christmas—Christ the Saviour.
As in the days of the Civil War, America once again faces a great divide drawing deep battle lines across her lands. While the battles being fought today are not as visible as Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, or Gettysburg, there are a great number of battles being fought nonetheless. Our founding fathers would grimace at the freedoms being so glibly given away that they themselves sacrificed their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to preserve for future generations. Cannons may not fire in the streets or across the fields today, but the soul of a nation once considered “one Nation under God” is at stake. The spiritual battles America faces today will determine her future long after the smoke of any physical battles has settled. When America removed God from being allowed in the schoolhouse, she set in motion events that would allow officials to remove and prevent her citizens from being allowed in the church house. What then can we do, and where can we turn to heal the divide in this nation?
Our only hope then is the same as our only hope now, and that hope is found in Christ. As we close the year 2020, we see that the soul of America has been battered but not yet broken. To preserve the republic for which this flag stands, one nation under God must rise up indivisible through the Peace on Earth that was given to us all in a lowly manger bed. What we celebrate in our homes on Christmas Day should be celebrated in our hearts every day. Longfellow pointed men to the answer to all the problems of life when he wrote the words, “…The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men.” This month in history marks the 157th anniversary of the day that Longfellow told the world of the One Who gives the peace for which all men spend their entire lives searching. This Christmas, may we all do the same and allow our speech and actions to display to the world that peace on Earth can be realized only in the Prince of Peace.
by Beth Payton
