“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”  Luke 2:14

 It was March, 1863, 18 year-old-old Charles Longfellow walked out of his family home, and unknown to his father, boarded a train bound for Washington, DC.  He traveled 400 miles from his birthplace in Massachusetts to join President Lincoln’s Union army to fight in the Civil War. Charles was the oldest son of Fannie and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the noted literary critic and poet.

Two years earlier, Fannie had tragically died after her dress caught on fire.  Her husband tried to extinguish the flames with a rug and his body, but was unable to save her.  Severely burned himself, he was too ill to attend his wife’s funeral.  The first Christmas following her death, Henry, a widower with five children, wrote, “How inexpressibly sad are all holidays.”  The sorrow in his life drowned out the peace the carols reflected.  He said, “A merry Christmas say the children, but that is no more for me.”

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!”

 On December 1, 1863, Longfellow received a telegram notifying him his son Charles had been shot in the shoulder.  The wound was quite severe with possible paralysis, for the bullet missed his spine by one inch.

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!”

 With the death of his wife and the wounding of his son in a war which he did not approve, where was the peace on earth?  He saw only a world filled with pain and death with hate so strong it seemed to outweigh the good.

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!”

 Longfellow, a devout Christian, regained hope.  Although his world was filled with grief, his despair dissipated as he realized God was alive and his power ruled over all mankind.  God was with him during the war and would reign sovereign in the days to come.

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.”

 Charlie survived his wounds, returned home, and was mustered out of the army in 1864.  On Christmas Day, that year, Longfellow wrote the words of this poem, entitled “Christmas Bells.”  Possibly the reelection of Abraham Lincoln and the end of the war was the occasion of the writing.  “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is Good!  For His mercy endures forever.” 1 Chronicles 16:34.

Merry Christmas!  Your friend, Jean