by Fred Moleck
300 Years of Charles Wesley (1707–1788)
One of the uproars immediately after Vatican II reforms were settling in was about singing Protestant hymns at a Roman Catholic Mass—and one of the hymns was by Martin Luther.Many Roman Catholic people saw him as the anti-Christ and his hymns as the agents of the devil.
Catholic people would be tainted forever if they dared stain their tongues by singing the words of the man who fractured Christianity forever.
Then there were the other Protestant hymns invading the Mass: “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the king of creation”—clearly some Lutheran implant designed to cause Roman Catholics to leave the one true, holy, catholic, apostolic, etc. church.
Little did the overly excited Catholics know that when they attended Christmas Mass they more than likely sang a hymn text by an Anglican priest who, with his brother, who was also an Anglican priest, was the founder of what we see today as the Methodist Church.
Yikes. Not one heretical inroad, but two heretical inroads.
That Christmas heretical text was and still is “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” with words by Charles Wesley and the tune from a men’s ensemble chorus that Mendelssohn thought inappropriate for any text for sacred use.
Well . . . William Cummings in 1857 wed Wesley’s text to the tune we now know as MENDELSSOHN, and it has worked ever since.
Paul Westermeyer in Let the People Sing: Hymn Tunes in Perspective writes, “The marriage was published in 1857 in Richard R. Chope’s Congregational Hymn and Tune Book. To date there has been no divorce” ([Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 2005], 156).
Charles Wesley is a most significant hymn text writer. Some of his texts you might have sung are
Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
Jesus Christ Is Risen Today
Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing—to name only five of his well over 6,000 hymn texts.
The hymnic world celebrates his birth, which occurred in 1707, which provides another opportunity for an anniversary festival—300 years of Wesley.
Listed above is his familiar text, “O for a thousand tongues to sing, my dear Redeemer’s praise:” sung to the tune of AZMON—but it is not so familiar many readers here since it is not printed in any of the GIA hymnals.
The text that is found in most hymnals has five of his original eighteen verses. The last verse is a doxology.
The other thirteen verses have some of the most surprising nouns that are called upon to save their souls by claiming Jesus as their savior. For example:
Harlots, and publicans, and thieves,
in holy triumph join!
Saved is the sinner that believes
from crimes as great as mine.Murderers, and all ye hellish crew,
ye sons of lust and pride,
Believe the Savior died for you:
for me the Savior died.Awake from guilty nature’s sleep,
and Christ shall give you light,
Cast all our sins into the deep,
and wash the Ethiop white.. . . “and wash the Ethiop white.” ??????
Before you storm the moat and turrets of the GIA kingdom and demand textual revision, please know “the Ethiop white” is a direct lift from the thirteenth chapter of Jeremiah, verse 23, which reads: “Can Ethiopians change their skin or leopards change their spots?”
There is no racial bigotry here, just an incredible knowledge and understanding of Scripture and the ability to reference it in a hymn text.
So, should any of your companions attack you about using non–Roman Catholic texts or changing beloved words thus violating the writers intent, counter back and teach them that “Hark the herald angels sing” was originally “Hark how all the welkin rings!”
“Welkins” are cosmic powers. Try not to look too smug when you are correcting your companions.
Next week—four hundred years of Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676).
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@comcast.net