A Service of Lessons and Carols: Text from Charles Wesley's 'Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord'

Charles Wesley seems to have had a deeper concern with matters relating to the Christian year than his brother John. This is reflected in a series of publications specifically concerned with high points in the life of Christ, which became key emphases in the development of the Christian year. The first of these publications was Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord, published in 1745. This was followed in 1746 by Hymns for Our Lord’s Resurrection. In the same year, he published hymns for Pentecost or Whitsunday. Some of Charles’s other publications also include hymns for other important days and periods of the Christian year. For example, the well-known Christmas hymn, “Hark! the herald angels sing,” another associated with Easter, “Christ the Lord is risen today,” and a Hymn for Ascension Day were all published in Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1739.

Charles Wesley’s hymns for the feast days of the Christian year are all the more interesting since they were not composed as such for worship in the Church of England during the Wesleys’ lifetime. Hymn singing was not officially permitted in the Church of England liturgies until 1821, after the death of John and Charles Wesley.

Where were Charles’s hymns for special seasons of the Christian year then used? Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord, the small collection from which the hymns in this Service of Lessons and Carols come, with one exception, went through twenty-six printings during Charles Wesley’s life. With each printing, approximately 3,000 copies were issued. This calculates to well over 50,000 during his lifetime. They were no doubt used for study and perhaps singing in the Methodist societies.

When tunes were first attached to certain texts is not always known. John Wesley wrestled with which tunes best fit certain texts in his three collections of tunes.[1]  In the case of Mendelssohn’s melody used with “Hark! The herald angels sing,” it was first paired with Charles Wesley’s text in 1855 by William Hayman Cummings, an English musician, who adapted a chorus from Mendelssohn’s secular work Festgesang for Wesley’s text.

A careful survey of Charles’s texts in Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord convinced me that they would be appropriate for a service of lessons and carols. In addition, I included one of his Advent texts, “The solemn hour is come,” which was not published during his lifetime. It eloquently celebrates the revelation of the incarnate Word in the birth of Jesus. As was sometimes the case with Charles, his texts echo parts of the liturgy of the Church of England. The first line of his hymn “Glory be to God on high” certainly echoes the beginning of the “Gloria in excelsis” (see The United Methodist Hymnal, 82).

A number of the tunes used here are in the public domain. There are three exceptions. The tune for “Come, thou long-expected Jesus” is by the Brazilian Marcilio de Oliveira, which provides a lively, upbeat melody, joyously anticipating the coming of the Christ Child. Another exception is the setting by the late Carlton R. Young, editor of the 1989 United Methodist Hymnal (UMH), dedicated to his son Robert. Finally, there is a tune, LIMINAL, composed by the outstanding Methodist musician from Singapore, Swee Hong Lim, for a text by Charles Wesley that was not published during his lifetime. This is its first musical setting.

Five tunes used in the service are in the public domain. Three are very well known: AMSTERDAM (UMH 96), DARWALL’S 148th (UMH 715), and MENDELSSOHN (UMH 240). ST. JOHN ADORATION is used in numerous hymnals, though not in The United Methodist Hymnal. It is often attributed to William Henry Havergal (1793–1870). Another is SALTASH, which appears in the British Methodist Hymnbook of 1933 with the text used here. Although SALTASH is originally a Cornish dance tune, it fits well with Wesley’s message of dissipating darkness and welcoming the light of the gospel of peace.

Charles Wesley’s texts effectively punctuate the anticipation of Isaiah’s prophecy, the nuances of the gospel narrative of the nativity story, and the affirmations, particularly of John’s Gospel, regarding the incarnation. May these texts, tunes, and Scripture readings awaken anew the meaning of the nativity in our time.

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