Day 7

On Saturdays and Sundays during Advent, we are focussing on playing some Christmas carols that we have recorded during our services in recent years and finding out what they’re actually all about.

Story behind the carol -
Once in Royal David’s City

Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895) was an Anglo-Irish hymn writer and poet.  Mrs. Alexander's wrote nearly 400  hymns and poems though her lifetime and is best known for her hymns, "All Things Bright and Beautiful," There is a Green Hill Far Away," and the Christmas carol, "Once in Royal David's City". She wrote primarily for children and felt that the truths of Christianity could best be taught through hymns and poems. In 1848, Cecil Frances wrote a series of poems to teach children about the Apostles Creed and one of those was "Once in Royal David's City" to explain to children the phrase from the Apostle's Creed that ‘Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary’.

 The carol was set to music in 1849, by the composer Henry John Gauntlett, who read the poem and liked it. He was an English organist and songwriter and he composed over 1,000 hymn tunes.  His most famous tune is "Irby," the tune to which we sing this popular Christmas carol.

 The carol has traditionally been the first carol sung in the annual ‘Carol’s from King’s’ service at King’s College Chapel in Cambridge. Actually, for the last 95 years it has opened the service.

 Like many traditional Christmas carols, ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ takes the nativity (the ‘lowly cattle-shed’ where the infant Jesus was born) as its subject. ‘Royal David’s City’ is Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Like other Christmas carols from the Victorian era, this carol focuses on the humble and ‘lowly’ origins of Jesus Christ: born in a ‘cattle shed’ or stable, but destined to become the Saviour of everyone. The writer draws a link between Jesus’ human birth and humans everywhere: ‘He was little, weak and helpless, / Tears and smiles like us He knew’. Jesus who is sung about in ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ is someone to identify with because he is like us, and he understands human suffering and human struggles.

Lyrics

Once in Royal David’s city
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her Baby
In a manger for His bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little Child.

He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall;
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.

And through all His wondrous childhood
He would honour and obey,
Love and watch the lowly maiden,
In whose gentle arms He lay:
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.

For he is our childhood’s pattern;
Day by day, like us He grew;
He was little, weak and helpless,
Tears and smiles like us He knew;
And He feeleth for our sadness,
And He shareth in our gladness.

And our eyes at last shall see Him,
Through His own redeeming love;
For that Child so dear and gentle
Is our Lord in heaven above,
And He leads His children on
To the place where He is gone.

Not in that poor lowly stable,
With the oxen standing by,
We shall see Him; but in heaven,
Set at God’s right hand on high;
Where like stars His children crowned
All in white shall wait around.