Angel musicians from dome of mausoleum at St. Martinikirche, Stadthagen, Germany / Anton Boten, 1625

Angels from the Realms of Glory serves as a rousing call to worship. In a usual service, the call to worship is addressed to the assembled congregation. This carol calls on angels, shepherds, wise men, saints, and sinners to worship Christ, the newborn king.

The original poem has seven verses, of which modern hymnals use no more than four.

James Montgomery, poet

James Montgomery (1771-1854), author of the text, was born to the only Moravian minister then serving in Scotland. When he was 5, his parents felt a call to the mission field in the West Indies. They left him in the care of a Moravian community. He never saw them again. When he was 12, they died in the West Indies.

By that time, the young boy had already started writing poems, but he didn’t maintain good enough grades to stay in school. He tried his hand at several different trades until he finally found his niche working for a newspaper in Sheffield, England called the Sheffield Register.

It was not a safe time to criticize the British government. The paper’s owner had already been jailed a few times when he advocated for Irish independence. Reaction to that editorial prompted him to leave the country in 1794.

Montgomery took over the paper and renamed it the Sheffield Iris. He, too, found himself in jail, but apparently his journalistic instincts weren’t sharp enough to keep him in real trouble. That paper gave him an outlet for publishing his poetry. It also made him wealthy. He became a well-known and respected lecturer on poetry all over the country.

He wrote about 400 hymns, inspired by the example of Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, John Newton, and others. Of all British hymn writers active before 1850, only Watts and Wesley have more hymns in modern hymnals.

Montgomery published Angels from the Realms of Glory in the his newspaper on Christmas Eve 1816. It only started to become well known after he republished it in The Christian Psalmist in 1825.

Angels from the Realms of Glory

Angels Announcing the Birth of Jesus to the Shepherds / by Govert Flinck (1615-1660)

Angels from the realms of glory,
Wing your flight o’er all the earth;
Ye who sang creation’s story
Now proclaim Messiah’s birth.

Refrain:

Come and worship, come and worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn king.

Shepherds, in the field abiding,
Watching o’er your flocks by night,
God with us is now residing;
Yonder shines the infant light:

Refrain

Sages, leave your contemplations,
Brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the great Desire of nations;
Ye have seen His natal star.

Refrain

Saints, before the altar bending,
Watching long in hope and fear;
Suddenly the Lord, descending,
In His temple shall appear.

Refrain

Sinners, wrung with true repentance,
Doomed for guilt to endless pains,
Justice now revokes the sentence,
Mercy calls you; break your chains.

Refrain

Though an Infant now we view Him,
He shall fill His Father’s throne,
Gather all the nations to Him;
Every knee shall then bow down:

Refrain

All creation, join in praising
God, the Father, Spirit, Son,
Evermore your voices raising
To th’eternal Three in One.

Refrain

Neither the original newspaper publication nor The Christian Psalmist includes the fifth stanza. It appeared in The Christmas Box, also published in 1825. I couldn’t find a cataloging record for it, so I don’t know if Montgomery added the verse or someone else did.

I have seen it criticized as harsh and ending the hymn on a down note. But it proclaims that Jesus’ coming reversed the penalty of sin for everyone who heeds his call to repentance. It’s the only hope any of us has. Hardly a downer!

Henry Smart and his tune

The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs / Fra Angelico (1420s)

Angels from the Realms of Glory was first sung five years after its first publication. The congregation on that occasion may have sung it to a tune called Lewes by John Randall (composed in ca. 1774).

Henry Smart (1813-1879) provided the most familiar tune. He was the son of a music publisher and the nephew of the greatest British conductor of his generation. He served as organist at a number of British churches and composed a wide variety of music, including an oratorio and an opera.

His eyesight started to fail when he was 18, and he had gone completely blind by age 52. Being blind did not hinder his career as organist because of his skill at improvisation. His daughter wrote the notation for all his subsequent compositions.

Smart served as music editor for three Presbyterian hymnals. In addition, he contributed tunes to other hymnals, including the landmark Hymns Ancient and Modern.

He composed his tune for Angels from the Realms of Glory for Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worshipin 1867. The general editor of that hymnal was pastor of one of London’s largest Presbyterian churches. He gave the tune its name after his church’s location, Regent Square.

Sources:

Behind the hymn: Angels from the Realms of Glory / Diane Leigh Matthews. December 17, 2017
Henry Thomas Smart (1813-1879) / Hymns and Carols of Christmas
History of hymns: “Angels from the Realms of Glory” / C. Michael Hawn, Discipleship Ministries of the United Methodist Church
James Montgomery / Hymnary.org
Story behind the song: ‘Angels, From the Realms of Glory’ / Lindsay Terry, The St. Augustine Record. December 12, 2014