What is your favorite Christmas carol? Ninety messengers attending the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting were asked that question Nov. 18-19 at Cottage Hill Baptist Church, Mobile. For most, it was hard to choose. “I like so many of them,” was a common response.
Choose they did, however, and “Silent Night” came in the hands-down favorite with exactly one-third of the votes. Coming in second with 19 votes was “Joy to the World,” and third was “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” with six votes.
Many attendees said the story behind “Silent Night” was what attracted them to the song.
As William J. Reynolds noted in the 1976 “Companion to the Baptist Hymnal” this famous carol has had a most interesting history.
It all began with a disastrous discovery on Christmas Eve, 1818, at St. Nicholas Church in mountainous Oberndorf, Austria: The organ was not working. That meant the music planned for the service that evening could not be used.
Assistant priest Joseph Mohr (1792–1848) quickly wrote a song that could be used at the service.
After Mohr wrote the words he requested the church’s acting organist, Franz Gruber (1787-1863), to compose the music. The new carol for two voices and a guitar was sung that evening.
Later a repairman came to work on the organ and heard about the new song composed for the emergency. He got a copy and over the next few years spread the carol throughout the area.
A family of glove makers in the repairman’s town who also sang folk songs gave a concert at Leipzig, Germany, and included it on their program.
A musician in their audience copied it down and took it with him to Berlin.
The new carol spread throughout Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean. It was first sung in the United States by German-speaking congregations.
In recent versions of the “Baptist Hymnal,” verses 1 and 3 are those translated into English by John Freeman Young in 1863, which is the same year “Silent Night’s” tune writer, Franz Gruber, died.
It is not known who wrote the second and fourth verses of this famous carol. (TAB)
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