CENTENARY OF A FAMOUS HYMN.

New Zealand Tablet, 8 May 1919, Page 39

CENTENARY OF A FAMOUS HYMN.

How many who year by year thrill to the sweetness of ; that . tender Christmas carol, Silent Night! Holy Night” know that it was written:, just over ; 100 years ago ? The , Epworth Herald .{calls'/ attention to this first centenary in the following paragraph : “This beautiful carol, sung by .all Christendom, celebrates the one hundredth anniversary of its birth this; year. It -is one :of the gifts ‘of the Catholic Church to j the world, haying being written by the Rev. ; Joseph Mohr, an Austrian priest of. that Communion. At the age of 23, the author was ordained to the priesthood and three years afterwards, in : 1818, he wrote this hymn for the Christmas service in the church,which he served as vicar.” It is not known who translated Father Mohr’s remarkably poetic hymn into English. But will its . Germano-Austrian origin bar it this year from the churches of our separated brethren ?. The worth ■ Herald, answers this.question in the \ negative. ./“Out of. the . clangor * of the time - its . Christmas message still rings r,true.”:? J;./’"./