Dear Editor,
I appreciated Antony Rees’s article calling on us to reflect on the words of familiar carols. I cannot agree, however, with his advocacy of It came upon the midnight clear.
Its author, Edmund Sears, was an American Unitarian minister/theologian; his hymn has been described (by Unitarians) as ‘quintessentially Unitarian.’ Because, as anyone can see, it is a Christmas hymn that carefully avoids mentioning the Incarnation. Hail the incarnate Deity (Wesley) would have been anathema to Unitarian congregations! And the ‘age of gold’ reference in the hymn owes nothing to biblical imagery, let alone the Second Coming (which Sears appeared to identify as the coming of the Holy Spirit); it is more probably linked to his admiration for classical Greece and its cyclical view of history (the ‘ever-circling years’). Others have noted it stresses peace on earth, but not in the sense of God and sinners reconciled (Wesley again).
