Back to: The Twelve Days of Christmas Carols
The author James Montgomery was born in Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland in 1771. Montgomery’s father, John, was an Irish Moravian missionary. When his parents were called to evangelistic work in the West Indies, the child was sent to a Moravian community in Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, and then seminary. At age 12 the parents James hardly knew died on the mission field.
Without parental support, he was not interested in schooling and flunked out by the time he was 14. However, he began writing poetry at age 10, inspired by the hymns of the Moravians, the same group that influenced John Wesley. By the age of twenty, he was a transient moving from job to job often unemployed, and homeless for weeks at a time.
Montgomery’s only interest was writing. Though no publisher was interested in his work, the radical editor of the Sheffield Register saw something in the young man’s raw talent. For the next two years, Montgomery got paid to do what he most loved to do—write stories. He also learned firsthand about the hardships of being an Irishman under English rule. At the age of twenty-three, when the newspaper’s owner was run out of town for writing radical editorials concerning Irish freedom, the missionary’s son took over the Register.
He assumed the leadership of the paper when the previous editor, due to his politics, had to flee the country for fear of persecution. Montgomery then changed the name of the paper to the Sheffield Iris and served for 31 years as editor.
Just as his parents had strongly rebelled against the strict rules and rituals of England’s official church, James was bent on carrying on a written war for Ireland’s freedom. At about that time, he also became an active leader in the abolitionist movement. His fiery editorial stance twice landed him in prison. Yet each time he was released, he returned to the Iris and continued his printed war for freedom on all fronts.
When Montgomery was not waging an editorial crusade against English rule and slavery, he was reading his Bible in an attempt to understand the power that motivated his parents’ lives and ultimately led to their deaths. In time, his Scripture study and rebellious zeal would blend and send the young man on a new mission.
His editorial on Dec. 24, 1816, contained his poem “Nativity”—what would eventually become the carol “Angels, from the Realms of Glory”. It told the story of angels proclaiming the birth of a Savior for all people, English and Irish, rich and poor, Anglican and Moravian. Montgomery soon touched more lives for Christ than his missionary parents ever did.
In 1825 it was printed in the Religious Tract Society’s book The Christmas Box, as one of “Three New Carols.” Montgomery revised it several times for publication in his Christian Psalmist, 1825, (under the new title of “Good tidings of great joy to all people”) and Original Hymns, 1853.
Eventually Montgomery gave up on an Irish revolution and went into writing hymns composing more than four hundred until the day he died in 1854. Behind James Watts and Charles Wesley he was England’s 3rd most prolific hymn writer even though fought against English rule in Ireland for most of his early life.
The music was written by Henry Smart. Henry Smart, the son of a music publisher, had given up a successful law career to become one of England’s finest organists and composers.
Many traditionalists wanted nothing in church services but the simple chants that had been a part of worship for hundreds of years. They often argued that the members of the congregation were merely spectators and should not be involved in the important facets of worship. Smart, however, felt that God spoke to every man and woman and that worship should be a joyful, corporate experience.
In the face of ridicule, Smart published new songbooks with harmonized melodies. When people heard his harmonies, they demanded that his work be used by the church. The problem was that by the age of 18 Smart was going blind.
But somewhere, some twenty years after it had been written, the composer listened to the Irishman’s words. Inspired by the words he saw in “Nativity,” Smart composed a tune to go with the poem. The poem was joined in 1867 to the tune “Regent Square” by Henry Thomas Smart (1813-1879) who was blinded in 1865. The tune got its name from London’s Regent Square Presbyterian Church
When published, the Montgomery/Smart collaboration had a different title and a new, vibrant life. “Angels, from the Realms of Glory” would not only be welcomed as a new Christmas carol, it would soon become one of the songs that opened the door for a new, joyful, and uplifting musical style in hundreds of English churches.