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Day 10 in Advent, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

It’s Tuesday in the 2nd week of Advent. One of the most popular carols of Christmas is “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”. I think every choir, Advent service, or wandering carol singers includes it in their singing. First the words:
Hark! the herald angels sing:
"Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled"
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With angelic hosts proclaim:
"Christ is born in Bethlehem"
Hark! the herald angels sing:
"Glory to the newborn King!"
[Verse 2]
Christ by highest Heav'n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin's womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! the herald angels sing:
"Glory to the newborn King!"
[Verse 3]
Hail the Heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! the herald angels sing:
"Glory to the newborn King
The story behind the song we sing has taken several turns. Originally the song was the composition of the famed Charles Wesley. Charles, along with his brother, John, was a leader in the newest offshoot of Christianity, the Methodist movement, in the early 1800s.
Charles was a prolific song-writer (remember "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" and "Love Divine All Loves Excelling").  When the words to this song were first written, Wesley’s opening line was “Hark! how the Welkin sings, glory to the new-born King”. In Wesley’s Victorian England the word “welkin” meant, “the vault of heaven is opened and heaven releases a long noise”. Wesley’s composition was filled with the Scripture of Luke 2, and he envisioned the heavenly host on that first Christmas Eve unleashing a proclamation of praise over the Shepherds as the good news of Christ’s birth is first told.
The tune he sang this song to was much different than ours today. The song would go through both a composition change, as well as a melody change. A couple of years after Wesley composed his song, a contemporary church leader, George Whitfield, changed the opening verse to the one we sing - “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the New-born King.” 
The word "herald" isn’t a word we use every day, but it is understandable to most (think of newspapers like the Boston Herald). To “herald” is to announce, or proclaim, and so Whitfield thought it a better word than "welkin" for the opening line.  Wesley was furious and to his dying day, refused to sing it Whitfield’s way.
The tune we sing came by way of William Cummings. Wesley died in 1788.  In 1855, Cummings took the tune from Felix Mendelssohn’s work - Festgesang a die Knustler - which was written by Mendelssohn as a tribute to Johan Gutenberg, the famous Bible printer who created the Gutenberg’s Bible.  Cummings borrowed the melody and combined them with the words of the carol revised by Whitfield to give us our now familiar carol. Thus, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the New-born King” in the end was changed in both words (from Wesley's to Whitfield's) and in the melody (from Mendelssohn to Cummings).
Cumming’s revision was printed in the Methodist hymnal in 1857, and within a few years most other Christian denominations also adopted it for their hymnals. Today Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is one of the most beloved songs of Christmas.
A beautifully produced version of this comes from Ireland.

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