THE ANGEL'S SONG
Haydon, Rev. A. E.
THE ANGELS SONG By Rev. A. E. Haydon (Department of Comparative Religion, University of Chicago) BEHIND the merriment of Yule-tide is the age-old pathos of human fears and hopes. Long before the...
...We must surely talk shamefacedly of love, goodwill and peace at this Christmas time...
...Never in history has the necessity of finding an embodiment in social structure of the peace ideal been so acutely felt...
...Defeated and discouraged...
...India smiles ruefully her enigmatic smile as she suffers under the galling yoke of a Christian power...
...But the world of fact rages against the dream...
...Imperialism knows little of the Christ Spirit and the ominous God of War holds court in the high places of the earth...
...Christianity turned for the realization of the hope to another world, leaving this world to the ravaging of the predatory powers of evil...
...The Angels' Song lingers and hope flickers into merriment at every Christmastide but joy and peace do not flower...
...For with the woes of sin and strife The world has suffered long, Beneath the Angels' Song have rolled Two thousand years of wrong...
...Turkey frankly announces her distrust in the honor of Christian states...
...The Yule fires were symbols of hope reborn...
...European imperialisms, aided by the gunboats of America, threaten China, pathetically, bravely struggling for a chance to live...
...Wearily the peoples groped their way from sorrow to sorrow down the meaningless pathway of the years...
...Never before have we understood as we understand today the nature of the world and of man...
...Never before have the leaders of religion so clearly seen, as today, the central significance of our human quest...
...Europe herself is torn by hatreds and jealousies with difficulty kept within bounds by the ruthless use of brute force...
...Syria burns with resentment under the smarting injustices of a Christian power...
...the ancient, unquenchable hunger for larger life still lives in the hearts of men...
...The symbol of that hope is the Angels' Song, "Gloria in excelsis Deo, and on earth to men of good will peace...
...The millions still dream...
...Never before, as now, was creative intelligence reinforced with knowledge, method and instruments for the realization of the dreams of man...
...When Christmas was blended with Yule there was a larger hope —the hope of a world freed from wrong and selfishness and strife— a world of righteousness and peace...
...Africa, with open wounds, bleeds from the ravages and exploitation at the hands of the west...
...America holds a threatening club over the heads of southern peoples slowly climbing the hard road to order and peace...
...Egypt sinks into sullen, brooding silence, biding her time...
...Long before the Christian era peoples at the threshold of time waited fearfully in the clutches of the death and desolation of winter, lighted their fires on the long nights and hoped for the rebirth of the sun to bring back warmth and the promise of fertility...
...The glaring hiatus between a gospel of love and peace and the greed, injustice and cruelties of our civilization stands revealed in the eyes of all lovers of human kind...
...Out of the anguish of a stricken world hope is born ever anew...
...And all this when in every one of these Christian lands at Christmas-tide will echo again the ancient song— "On earth to men of good will peace...
...And man, at war with man hears not The love songs that they bring...
...The dream did not come true...
...But it is also possible, with straight-seeing eyes and resolute will, to make earnest with the prosaic meaning behind the symbol of the Angels' Song...
...It is the glory of our kind that in spite of all the bludgeonings of time and circumstance the tires of hope are ever alight...
...Lost among the silent stars of the timeless universe, the dwellers on earth see now as they have never seen before the pathetic need of common responsibility and brotherliness to win and preserve for our common humanity the higher values of living...
...Again the pathos...
...Perhaps at some Christmas-tide the merriment will give place to joy and the morning sun smile upon a world of beauty, of goodwill and peace...
...Never was human control of resources, of mechanism, of energy and technology for the foundation materials of culture so complete and full of promise as today...
...Modern industry is not attune to the music of love...
...We still have faith in the reality symbolized in the Angels' Song...
...Oh hush your noise ye men of strife And hear the angels sing" The pathos becomes poignant and begins to be articulate in our modern world...
...Never have we seen the task so clearly...
...It is possible, as philosopher and spectator, to stand apart and laugh at the strange stupidity of man...
...Even the poor happiness of Christmas "is commercialized and made to yield its cash value in profits...
Vol. 18 • December 1926 • No. 12
