CHRISTMAS.
“ADESTE FIDELES.”
This hymn is of doubtful authorship, by some assigned to as late a date as 1680, and by others to the 13th century as one of the Latin poems of St. Bonaventura, Bishop of Albano, who was born at Bagnarea in Tuscany, A.D. 1221. He was a learned man, a Franciscan friar, one of the greatest teachers and writers of his church, and finally a cardinal. Certainly Roman Catholic in its origin, whoever was its author, it is a Christian hymn qualified in every way to be sung by the universal church.
Adeste, fideles
Laeti triumphantes,
Venite, venite in Bethlehem;
Natum videte Regem angelorum.
Chorus.
Venite, adoremus,
Venite, adoremus!
Venite, adoremus Dominum.
This has been translated by Rev. Frederick Oakeley (1808–1880) and by Rev. Edward Caswall (1814–1878) the version of the former being the one in more general use. The ancient hymn is much abridged in the hymnals, and even the translations have been altered and modernized in the three or four stanzas commonly sung. Caswall's version renders the first line “Come hither, ye faithful,” literally construing the Latin words.
The following is substantially Oakeley's English of the “Adeste, fideles.”
O come all ye faithful
Joyful and triumphant,
To Bethlehem hasten now with glad accord;
Come and behold Him,
Born the King of Angels.
Chorus.
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ, the Lord.
Sing choirs of angels,
Sing in exultation
Through Heaven's high arches be your praises poured;
Now to our God be
Glory in the highest!
O come, let us adore Him!
Yea, Lord, we bless Thee,
Born for our salvation
Jesus, forever be Thy name adored!
Word of the Father
Now in flesh appearing;
O come, let us adore Him!
The hymn with its primitive music as chanted in the ancient churches, was known as “The Midnight Mass,” and was the processional song of the religious orders on their way to the sanctuaries where they gathered in preparation for the Christmas morning service. The modern tune—or rather the tune in modern use—is the one everywhere familiar as the “Portuguese Hymn.” (See [page 205].)
MILTON'S HYMN TO THE NATIVITY.
It was the winter wild
While the Heavenly Child
All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies.
Nature in awe of Him
Had doffed her gaudy trim
With her great Master so to sympathize.
* * * * * *
No war nor battle sound
Was heard the world around.
The idle spear and shield were high uphung.
The hooked chariot stood
Unstained with hostile blood,
The trumpets spake not to the armed throng,
And Kings sat still with awful eye
As if they knew their Sovereign Lord was by.
This exalted song—the work of a boy of scarcely twenty-one—is a Greek ode in form, of two 521 / 461 hundred and sixteen lines in twenty-seven strophes. Some of its figures and fancies are more to the taste of the seventeenth century than to ours, but it is full of poetic and Christian sublimities, and its high periods will be heard in the Christmas hymnody of coming centuries, though it is not the fashion to sing it now.
John Milton, son and grandson of John Miltons, was born in Breadstreet, London, Dec. 9, 1608, fitted for the University in St. Paul's school, and studied seven years at Cambridge. His parents intended him for the church, but he chose literature as a profession, travelled and made distinguished friendships in Italy, Switzerland and France, and when little past his majority was before the public as a poet, author of the Ode to the Nativity, of a Masque, and of many songs and elegies. In later years he entered political life under the stress of his Puritan sympathies, and served under Cromwell and his successor as Latin Secretary of State through the time of the Commonwealth. While in public duty he became blind, but in his retirement composed “Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.” Died in 1676.