Edmund Hamilton Sears, the author of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear was a quiet man. His message in his writing and presumably from the pulpit was that of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” His love of the scripture the song was based on and the message in much of his work can be summarized in his well-known hymn.
A Quiet Man
Edmund Hamilton Sears was born in Massachusetts on April 6, 1819. He was an ordained Unitarian minister who shunned the public. He preferred to live in small towns with small congregations where he could devote most of his time to studying, thinking, and writing.
The First Attempt
When he was 24, Sears wrote a carol titled Calm on the Listening Ear, which was inspired by the text of Luke 2:13-14 “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
It was similar to a carol he would write fifteen years later, It Came upon the Midnight Clear, which most people are more familiar with than his first attempt at writing a carol based on that inspiring verse. His first attempt used the same meter as the second carol and they both can be sung to the same tune.
A Second Attempt
Fifteen years later the United States was on the cusp of the Civil War. Sears once again returned to his theme of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” His second attempt proved to be more popular than his first hymn. However, today’s singers do not grasp the depth of his emotion at that point in history since the stanza that contextualizes it is usually omitted.
“Yet with the woes of sin and strife / The world hath suffered long; / Beneath the angel-strain have rolled / Two thousand years of wrong; / And man, at war with man, hears not / The love song which they bring: / O hush the noise, ye men of strife, / And hear the angels sing!”
The Tune
As is often the case, the original tune was replaced. Richard Storrs Willis originally wrote the tune that we use for It Came Upon the Midnight Clear for While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night in 1850. Several years later, the tune and lyrics were brought together.
Sources
Reynolds, Virginia. The Spirit of Christmas: A History of Best-Loved Carols. Peter Pauper Press, Inc. 2000.
Morgan, Robert J. Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories. Thomas Nelson Publishers. 2003.
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