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university predominantly dedicated to the education of freed slaves and their children), Work went on to head the school’s Latin and history departments.
    While teaching there he became interested in collecting and promoting Negro spirituals. He and his brother Jerome published a collection called
New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers
in 1901. This was followed six years later by
Folk Songs of the American Negro
, which included “Go, Tell It on the Mountain.”
    Lacking Bibles, the dispossessed traditionally tended to rely on rhythmic songs, easy to sing while working and containing messages powerful enough to get them to the end of the day. “Go, Tell It on the Mountain” is a simple recounting of the Nativity story with the star, shepherds, manger, and Baby—and it ends with the assurance of salvation.
    The chorus reminds the listener that this is a message worth singing not just in the fields and valleys but from the tops of the highest mountains.
    The slaves told the story in song, and John Wesley Work heard it. He told us. Now whom can we tell?
    The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all)
.
    A CTS 10:36

Angels We Have Heard on High
    Angels we have heard on high
,
Sweetly singing o’er the plains
,
And the mountains in reply
,
Echoing their joyous strains
.
Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

Sing the Song of the Angels
    A ngels We Have Heard on High” was originally the traditional French tune “Les
Angeles dans Nos Campagnes
,” which translates as “Angels in Our Countryside.” The angels in question weren’t in any European countryside, though—they were in the hills around Bethlehem, telling the shepherds the good news.
    Legend has it that the French shepherds took this part of Luke’s Gospel to heart, and they would sing the Nativity story on the hills around Christmastime. Perhaps it was purely for the joy of worship, or perhaps it was simply a way of letting the shepherds on the other side of the valley or on neighboring hills know they were not alone. These were, of course, the days before cell phones! The song they sang is reputed to have evolved into “Les Angeles dans Nos Campagnes.”
    It’s a simple but joyful telling of that angelic visit on the night of the Savior’s birth. The hills resound with the angels’ chorus; then the shepherds sing it to the world. When others ask them what all the noise is about, they reply, “Come to Bethlehem and see!”
    In 1862 four years before he became bishop of Hexham and Newcastle in England, James Chadwick translated the traditional French carol into “Angels We Have Heard on High.” It first appeared in print in Holy Family Hymns. The tune we know came later, adapted by American Edwin Shippen Barnes, who studied music in France and may have heard the original version there.
    Just as God didn’t hesitate to become man, so humankind shouldn’t hesitate to sing the songs of praise the angels sang. When it comes to “Gloria, in excelsis deo” (or “Glory to God in the highest”), you don’t need wings to sing. You just need what those French shepherds must have had—a good strong pair of lungs.
    And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds
.
    L UKE 2:17–18

There’s a Song in the Air
    There’s a song in the air;

There’s a star in the sky
.
There’s a mother’s deep prayer

And a Baby’s low cry
.
And the star rains its fire

While the beautiful sing
,
For the manger of Bethlehem

Cradles a King!

Sing Salvation to the Angels
    M ost translations of the Bible say the angels
spoke
praises to the Lord while the shepherds stood listening in fear and awe. But the image of a heavenly choir
singing
as Jesus is born persists. Why? Perhaps it’s because such wonderful news inspires the human heart to