“Everybody Knows ‘Holy Night’”
“Can we not sing something together?” This was the question asked in the days of the First World War at a gathering in the Young Women’s Christian Association in Boston.
“Why,” someone exclaimed, “how can we?” Then she added, “There is no language which all of us speak.”
The answer appeared to be discouragingly decisive until a French girl made a happy suggestion. “But tunes,” said she, “are the same, and there ought to be a tune which we all know, even if we have to sing different words.”
“Everybody knows ‘Holy Night,’” remarked a young woman of large musical ability, born in Russia. Her parentage was English and German, and she had cousins in each of the three nations. She sat down at the piano and began to play the song.
An American concert singer with a rare voice, invited in for the occasion, stood by her and led. Those who spoke English began to sing:
“Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright.”
One after another others joined, and soon, French, Swiss, German, Austrian, Belgian, Pole, Russian and Italian were all singing together the same message to the same music—but each in her own tongue.
“If we all start from Christ,” said Henry Churchill King, who once related this incident, “the nations can come into harmony, even though each sings in its own tongue.”