HOTC #12: LSB 397, As With Gladness Men of Old
The story of the Three Wise Men is an indispensable part of the Christmas canon - indeed, while their arrival is the whole occasion for the celebration of Epiphany, the event has been so co-opted into Christmas that no Nativity set and no telling of the Christmas story seems to be complete without them. They appear in many Christmas carols as well, most notably "We Three Kings,” which is not in Lutheran Service Book (side note: I would love to interview or get a guest column here from somebody about why this isn’t in Lutheran Service Book, but I haven’t figured out who to contact yet, so if you’re that person, let me know). With the absence of the Wise Men carol, something logically has to fill that space and tell the story of the Three Wise Men explicitly (many others of course allude to it, though the selection of Epiphany hymns in Lutheran Service Book does tend to dwell more on the star, both as a plot device and as an allegory (for light, both literally and figuratively, as we’ve seen over the past few weeks). That something is this hymn, the only one in Lutheran Service Book which deals with the origin story of Epiphany directly.
Adoration of the Magi by Peter Paul Rubens, 1634
The Author
William Chatterton Dix was one of those prodigious hymnwriters for which mid-Victorian Britain became quite well-known. His father was a surgeon and a published author (his writings include a complete biography of the poet Thomas Chatterton, for whom young William was named), and he himself worked professionally as manager of a maritime insurance company in Glasgow, Scotland.
Dix was a prolific hymnwriter: Hymnary.org lists dozens of his English-language original texts (as well as several translations of those texts into other languages), and four of his hymns appear in Lutheran Service Book (LSB #370, our current subject, LSB #684, and LSB #821). Many of his hymns were composed during a period of severe illness in his 20s, when he was bedridden and suffering from severe depression.
He died, age 61, in Cheddar, Somerset, in 1898.
The Text
The first glance at this hymn on the page gives away the most obvious hint to its structure: the first three verses all begin with “As…” and two of those three verses begin their closing lines with “So, …” This is a deliberate layout - the first three verses are all in the form of a series of mirrors: “As…[event from Scripture] happened, so [desired present result].” “As with gladness men of old…” saw and follows the Star of Bethlehem, and “As with joy they hailed its light…” so “…may we Evermore be led by Thee,” just to simplify one example (the first verse).
Within this framework of biblical allusions and earnest desires for present godliness the hymnwriter also outlines and unfolds the story of the Three Wise Men.
This mirroring of “As…” and “So…” is followed in the final two verses by a pair of petitions to Christ for salvation, the first that we may be kept “in the narrow way;” so that we may go “Where they need no star to guide, Where no clouds Thy glory hide.” (the fourth verse, an allusion to Revelation 21:23-25), and the second similar to it, that we may forever “sing Alleluias to our King.” (the final verse). These two concluding verses essentially meditate on the story outlined in the first three verses.
The Tune
The catchy, boisterous tune DIX is derived from an earlier creation by the Wurttembergian composer Conrad Kocher, which was somewhat longer, having seven phrases instead of the present six. When the Englishman William H. Monk wished to include Dix’s text in his 1861 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern, he simply took Kocher’s work and excised the fifth phrase, shortening the “B” section of the hymn’s structure by one phrase so as to fit the meter of Dix’s poetry. Monk’s other works included in Lutheran Service Book include LSB #345, LSB #405, LSB #441, LSB #485, LSB #529, LSB #567, LSB #781, LSB #878, and LSB #966. Hymntunes originating from Monk’s Hymns Ancient and Modern which appear in Lutheran Service Book include LSB #464, LSB #524, LSB #564, LSB #672, and LSB #798. Clearly his impact on English-language hymnody has been immense.
As alluded to just previously, the hymn has an AAB structure, with each section containing two phrases of seven beats/syllables each.
As Victorian hymntunes go, it is rather a good one, and the energy of the hymn can be maintained quite easily with a quick, rousing tempo and proper articulation (particularly by providing plenty of space for the repeated notes in the second measure of each of the “A” sections).
The tune post-dates most of the major composers of church music, though its use among modern church music composers is quite prolific, as seen by the list below.
Settings of this hymn and/or tune can be found in:
For organ:
Concordia Hymn Prelude Library, Vol. 3
Alternate harmonizations:
400 Last Verses - Noel Rawsthorne