Free Silent Night by Inc. Barbour Publishing

The Christmas Truce Carol
    T he romantic version of the “Silent Night” story has an Austrian priest at his wits’ end when the church organ breaks down on Christmas Eve. With the prospect of a silent night ahead, he and the organist come up with a new hymn that can be sung without accompaniment. The result, “Silent Night,” goes on to become one of the most popular Christmas carols of all time.
    The real story (according to Silent Night Museum in Salzburg, Austria) is grittier but possibly more inspirational.
    Joseph Mohr was born illegitimately in a time when illegitimacy halted any possibility of social progress. Fortunately, his singing voice caught the ear of the cathedral choirmaster, and he was encouraged into the priesthood.
    Working as an assistant priest, he helped translate hymns from Latin to German, to the delight of parishioners and the fury of the church establishment. Mohr’s liberal priest was replaced by a hard-liner.
    Resenting Mohr’s popularity, the new priest attempted to blacken his reputation by bringing up his illegitimate beginnings. The battle of wills culminated on Christmas Eve 1818 when the church organ mysteriously died. Mice were blamed, but another likely suspect was Mohr’s friend, organist Franz Gruber. He put music to lyrics Mohr had written two years before, and “Silent Night” had its first public performance. It was sung in German with a guitar accompaniment, something that normally never would have been allowed.
    The carol’s popularity in both German and English made it the one song both armies could sing in unison from their trenches during the Christmas truce of 1914.
    Joseph Mohr died in 1863. He left this world as poor as he came into it, having given everything he had for the sake of the poor. Not only did the life of this relatively unknown priest benefit his parishioners, but it glorified his Lord and gave the whole world a beautiful reminder of the night the world fell silent lest it wake a newborn baby.
    And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him
.
    H EBREWS 1 :6

Away in a Manger
    Away in a manger
,
No crib for a bed
,
The little Lord Jesus

Laid down His sweet head
.
The stars in the sky

Looked down where He lay
,
The little Lord Jesus

Asleep on the hay
.

A Lullaby for the World
    S ome things in this world—melodies, concepts, prayers—touch the human soul so deeply it would almost be a shame to ascribe them earthly authorship. “Away in a Manger,” the first carol many children ever learn, encompasses our feeling of Christmas so completely that it might have been a gift to the world rather than something teased from a mind and scratched out in pen and ink.
    Fittingly, no one knows who came up with the first two verses, although the image of reforming clergyman Martin Luther singing it over his children’s cradles has proven remarkably durable despite there being no proof he wrote the carol. It does, however, fit beautifully with Luther’s belief that all comfort and rest are to be found in God.
    The third verse, beginning with “Be near me,” appears slightly later and, despite having various claimants for authorship, ultimately remains as mysterious as the rest.
    The carol (or lullaby, sometimes called “Cradle Song”) first surfaced in America rather than Luther’s Germany with the publication, in 1885, of a Lutheran Sunday school book. It popped up again, two years later, in Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses and has been a much-loved part of the festive celebrations ever since, especially with children.
    The idea that the Lord was once a child who needed cared for, just like them, appeals to the little ones. But it’s an appeal that doesn’t seem to wane as those children grow older. When adult carolers sing, “Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care, and fit us for heaven to live with Thee there,” you just know the children they are singing about still