One of the most famous of Protestant hymn writers, Charles Wesley, was inspired to write this beautiful carol as he walked to church one Christmas morning in 1730 and heard the pealing of the bells. An organist at Waltham Abbey later set it to this music Mendelssohn had composed for a festival at Leipzig in 1840. It was finally published in 1856, although the composer once declared that such happy music would never fit sacred words. The current words are the work of many alterations over the years.
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