Angels From the Realms of Glory
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.
Come and worship, come and worship, come and worship;
Worship Christ the newborn King!
Shepherds in the fields abiding; Watching o’er your
flocks by night;
God with man is now residing; Yonder shines the infant
light.
Sages leave your contemplations; Brighter visions beam
afar;
Seek the great desire of nations; Ye have seen His natal
star.
Saints before the altar bending; Watching long in hope
and fear;
Suddenly the Lord descending; In His temple shall appear.
All creation join in praising; Got the Father, Spirit,
Son;
Evermore your voices raising, To th’eternal Three in One.
Come and worship, come and worship, come and worship;
Worship Christ the newborn King!
In 1777, when he was the tender age of six, James
Montgomery’s parents, his father at the time the only Moravian pastor in
Scotland, left their son in a boarding school while they sailed to Barbados as
missionaries. There, they perished and
James found himself an orphan.
James continued his schooling and later eventually
dropped out of a couple of different apprenticeships set up for him by
well-meaning friends, preferring instead to the writing of poetry. In 1792, he was apprenticed in Sheffield to a
bookseller and printer of a political newspaper named Joseph Gales. Two years later, Gales fled the country in a
wave of political persecution leaving James as Editor of the newspaper, a
position he held for the next 31 years.
James continued the political bent of the paper, even being imprisoned
twice for articles in it.
James’ deep faith constantly was at the forefront of what
he did. His paper railed against moral
sins of the day: including the institution of slavery and the exploitation of
children working jobs of very hard labor – such as chimney sweeps. James championed the cause of foreign
missions and raised a great deal of money for the British Bible Society. James, later in his life, turned his talent
for writing poetry to writing hymns. In the
Baptist Hymnal in our pews, there are six hymns written by Mr Montgomery – Angels
from the Realms of Glory being probably the most prominent. He wrote over 400 published hymns in his
life, over 100 now are still being sung, to include the hymn “The Lord is my
Shepherd”. Though he is not remembered as
well as them, his hymn-writing is often compared to Charles Wesley or to Isaac
Watts.
John Montgomery, a bachelor his entire life, was
well-respected in Sheffield, and he was given a public funeral upon his death
in 1854. A statue was erected in his
memory which still stands today in front of Sheffield Cathedral. That same cathedral also has a stained-glass
window as a tribute to him.
Morgan, Robert J., Then Sings My Soul, Nelson Publishing,
2003.
