Last night one of my lovely neighbors came over to visit me.
Sweet Ann Baird brought over a few stories about a couple of cherished
Christmas Songs. As I read the stories last night, I was touched by the
thoughtfulness of this dear friend – and touched by these songs and the stories
behind them.
Since I’ve had so much fun blogging lately, I decided to
take on another Blogging Challenge – and I’m calling this one The 25 Stories of
Christmas. Every day through Christmas Day, I will pick one of my favorite
Christmas stories to share.
Tonight’s comes from Ann Baird, and is about the song “Far,
Far Away on Judea’s Plains” - which was written here in Utah:
A CHRISTMAS SONG by Reed Blake
When he was asked to sell his home and property and move to
the Cotton Mission in St. George in the spring of 1868, John M. Macfarlane felt
that it was more than just a call to direct one of the territory’s finest
choirs. To his mind there was in this call a special mission to perform, a
destiny of which he knew not the form.
The mission choir had been organized two years earlier when
President Brigham Young had called Professor Charles J. Thomas, conductor of
the Salt Lake Theatre orchestra and Tabernacle Choir, to go to St. George to
“teach the people the correct principles of singing and train local talent to
lead out in this direction.” Now Professor Thomas was leaving, and Macfarlane,
who had won acclaim as director of the Cedar City Choir, was taking his place
as director of the St. George Choir.
John Macfarlane, who was an attorney-at-law, a
schoolteacher, and a surveyor in addition to being a musician, accomplished
several things in his new position before many months had passed. He
reorganized the choir, introduced the innovation of a choir soloist, organized
the St. George Harmonic Society, and made a lasting friend of the city’s poet,
Charles L. Walker.
In time Walker and Macfarlane collaborated on many songs,
among them one that was written for the Sunday School children, “Dearest
Children, God Is Near You.” Macfarlane composed music, and Walker wrote words.
When they collaborated, it was usually a composition to commemorate a special
occasion—the dedication of a building, a visit from a general authority, a
holiday celebration on the town square.
And so it was that the “special mission” began for which
John M. Macfarlane felt he had been called to St. George.
In late autumn the two men had been approached and asked to
write a song for the coming Christmas program. Walker completed the words for
the song, and now Macfarlane was trying to set them to music. One night he went
to bed discouraged; he had spent the day in a concerted effort to write the
Christmas song, but the effort had proven futile. How often he had tried. How
often he had failed. How often he had gone to his knees on the matter. And now
as he stared up at the darkened ceiling he wondered why it was that he was
unable to write the music, which he so much desired to do.
Yet, perhaps Macfarlane had for weeks been forming in his
mind the song that this night he would finally compose. From his intense conscious
efforts he had probably been depositing in his subconscious the hymn’s
framework, the elements that complemented the song he wanted to write.
As he entered the heavy slumber of first sleep and began
dreaming, he suddenly heard the song. Musical strains within his subconscious
mind began forming and coming into a conscious state.
Macfarlane arose quickly.
“Why are you getting up at this hour?” his wife Ann asked.
“I have the son,” he said. “I have the song and I must write
it down.”
“You could do it just as well in the morning,” she replied.
“No, I must do it now.”
Dutifully, Ann left the bed and followed her husband to the
living room. The house was chilled, and while Ann procured his writing
materials, he revived the banked fire, humming the song as he did so, the
melody and the words playing across his mind. Then the work began.
It was a strange sight. The composer’s portly frame was
hunched over the organ, clothed in his nightshirt and stocking cap, his ankles
exposed, his movement now jerky and hurried, now slow and pensive. And beside
him his wife was huddled over his shoulder with an outstretched candle, clad in
flannel nightclothes, shifting the light from hand to hand and supporting with
her free hand the elbow of the other arm.
Quickly Macfarlane recorded the melodic line and then added
the lyrics that had brought him from his sleep. What was coming to life was a
piece so new, so dramatic, that an emotion welled strongly within him, and he
lost himself from the world about him.
Outside, the sporadic squawks and distended chords that came
from the house fell on a city embraced by a winter’s night. A cock crowed,
disturbed prematurely, then went silent. A cold breeze went through the trees
and spent itself. In the gray of the morning the room grew cold, the banked
fire had died to a pile of ashes. But the composer did not stop to feed it.
Now he was working on the parts, and the pace went slower.
With one hand he fingered the keyboard, while with the other he wrote. From
time to time he would lean back and look at his wife, and Ann would smile and
nod. Often, as at the conclusion of a passage, she would pat his shoulder or
squeeze his arm, conveying to her husband pride, approval, encouragement. The
hours passed.
Finally he stood, stretched, and went to the window. To the
east the sun was edging the cliffs of pink and gold and bronze; in the valley
the Virgin River picked up the shafts of light and glistened like a silver
ribbon in its lazy drift toward the south.
Macfarlane returned to the organ and adjusted himself on the
stool. Hesitantly at first, the boldly, he struck the chords. Suddenly the room
came to life. His wife picked up the melody, and the composer took the strong
counter-melody of the bass; together they sang the composition once, twice, and
then a third time. At its end, Ann was crying.
Amid his joy, Macfarlane harbored a touch of misgiving: No
longer did the song contain any evidence of Charles Walker’s words.
Nevertheless, it was the poet’s writing that had launched the song, and for that
contribution he ascribed Walker’s name to the manuscript.
Charles Walker was elated with the new song. He recognized
its appeal and hinted of the popularity it would one day enjoy. He would not,
however, lay any claim to its origin. It was Macfarlane’s song, both words and
music, and to him should go all the credit.
When the St. George choir sang the song for the first time,
it received an ardent reception. In the following weeks the people sang it in
their homes, in their caroling, in their many gatherings. By the following
Christmas Saintss all over the Church were singing the Macfarlane hymn.
From the Utah territory the song spread across the nation,
and in Albany and Atlanta, Lafayette and Lincoln, the people sang:
“Far, far away on Judea’s plains,
Shepherds of old heard the joyous strains.”
And across the seas the world heard it. In Brussels and
Bordeaux, Liverpool and Lausanne, the strains peeled forth:
“Glory to God, Glory to God,
Glory to God in the highest;
Peace on earth, good will to men,
Peace on earth, good will to men!”
And so John M. Macfarlane’s message rings forth each year,
telling the people the great message of Christmas, as in these words from the
second verse:
“Sweet are the strains of redeeming love,
Message of mercy from heav’n above,”
And from the third stanza:
“Lord with the angels we too would rejoice;
Help us to sing with the heart and voice.”
Then the song concludes with a world call for brotherhood:
“Hasten the time when, from ev’ry clime,
Men shall unite in the strains sublime:
Glory to God, Glory to God,
Glory to God in the highest;
Peace on earth, good will to men,
Peace on earth, good will to men!”
Not immediately, but gradually, as he realized that a Mormon
had given to the world one of its universal Christmas hymns, John M. Macfarlane
acknowledged that his special calling to a climate much like that of Judea had
been fulfilled.
(originally printed in The Improvement Era)
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