Judah’s Sacred Hills

“The answering hills of Palestine
Send back the glad reply;
And greet, from all their holy heights,
The Day-Spring from on high.”

“Calm on the Listening Ear of Night”
Words: Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears 1834
Music: George A. Blackman 1908

It seems that no New Church Christmas service is complete without a stirring rendition of “Calm on the Listening Ear of Night.” This hymn has been a favourite in New Church congregations for over a century. Yet if you look online you will search in vain for the old familiar tune. While the words are a popular carol, the tune is little known outside the New Church.

We’ll return to the tune in a moment; but first the words. They were written by Edmund Sears in 1834, then a young man of 24. Sears is better known for writing “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” (1849). I’m not sure when he first encountered Swedenborg’s writings, but later in life he was deeply influenced by them. Unlike some historical figures for whom we have only circumstantial evidence at best, Sears proclaims the connection in his own words. In 1846 he wrote to a friend:

The doctrine of the Lord is glowing in my mind like a noon-day sun; and I cannot doubt any longer that Swedenborg was appointed medium of a new dispensation.

Quoted in Benjamin Fiske Barrett, A Cloud of Independant Witnesses, 1891, p. 115

Although he rarely mentioned Swedenborg by name, the doctrines of the New Church shine through in his writings. Towards the end of his life, in 1875 he published a collection of his sermons paired with hymns that he had written. “Calm On the Listening Ear of Night” follows a sermon that, while never mentioning the Writings, forcefully sets forth the Doctrine of the Divine Human.

A more openly New Church individual composed the tune. George A. Blackman was a member of the Sharon Church in Chicago, Illinois. He taught music in the Chicago High Schools and was particularly noted for improving the quality of the singing there. Given his skills it is no surprise that he was heavily involved in producing a new liturgy for the General Church of the New Jerusalem. It was in this capacity that he composed the new tune for “Calm on the Listening Ear of Night.” A note in his obituary in 1919 attests to how quickly his work rose in prominence among members of the General Church:

To his wide knowledge of musical literature and his skill as a harmonist we owe the many new adaptations and improvements in the music of the hymns. Nos. 150 and 162 are of his own composition. The music of “Calm on the list’ning ear of night” ranks with the best settings of this celebrated hymn, and has deservedly found a place among the favorites with our congregations.

“Deaths,” New Church Life 1919, p. 137

The lyrics of the carol portray a land rising up to greet the new-born Saviour. It is the very hills and mountains of the Holy Land that echo the good news of the angels, and the trees themselves wave in in praise of Him. This is poetic language of course, but it echoes the language of the Word. Isaiah for example pictures nature personified in joyful celebration:

For you shall go out with joy,
And be led out with peace;
The mountains and the hills
Shall break forth into singing before you,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Isaiah 55:12

This language is not merely poetry. Every feature of that land of Canaan mentioned in the Word symbolizes something of the Lord’s Kingdom, something spiritual or heavenly that can exist in each one of us:

The Word could not have been written anywhere else than there because all the places throughout the whole of that land, and those around it – the mountains, valleys, rivers, forests, and everything else – had become representative of heavenly and spiritual realities.

Secrets of Heaven §10559

The fullness of a human life is imprinted in the geography of Israel, from the hellish depths by the shores of the Dead Sea, rising all the way to the glorious heights of Mt. Zion, from the life giving rivers to the parched deserts, from the great and endless sea in the West to the rising of the sun in the East, all of it speaks of us, and of the Lord. And what an amazing thing it is to picture all parts of our life, from the outermost habits to the innermost desires of our hearts, rising to greet the coming of our Lord, the Day-Spring from on high. When it comes to us, will we too echo back the message of the angels?

The answering hills of Palestine
Send back the glad reply;
And greet, from all their holy heights,
The Day-Spring from on high.
O’er the blue depths of Galilee
There comes a holier calm,
And Sharon waves, in solemn praise,
Her silent groves of palm.