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something more exuberant than speaking.
    Think about it. The Creator of all things came down to be among us, and He wasn’t angry with us—He had come to love and save us! If the angels
weren’t
singing, it might be because they had never been lost; they had never needed saving. Humanity, on the other hand, would have felt the loss more keenly and celebrated salvation more rapturously.
    Josiah G. Holland sticks with the tradition of the song from on high in his poem “There’s a Song in the Air,” first published in his book
The Marble Prophecy and Other Poems
in 1872. A doctor, teacher, novelist, poet, journalist, and editor, Holland was a friend of Emily Dickinson and wrote a well-received biography of President Lincoln.
    A glance through
The Marble Prophecy
shows that faith loomed large in Holland’s life. Indeed, he followed the Methodist tradition, as did Karl Harrington, who, two years after Holland died, took the words of his poem “There’s a Song in the Air” and put them to music.
    The angelic serenade may be the starting point to this beautiful Christmas carol, but then Holland describes how the song sweeps around the world and still blazes in the hearth of each Christian home. Angels didn’t do that. People, walking with the Holy Spirit and with hearts full of joy at their redemption, did.
    The angels may or may not have sung the first “Gloria in excelsis” on that holy night. But, as Holland points out in the last stanza of “There’s a Song in the Air,” the children of the Lord have been singing it back to them ever since.
    Sing unto the L ORD , all the earth; shew forth from day to day his salvation
.
    1 C HRONICLES 16:23

Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne
    Thou didst leave Thy throne

and Thy kingly crown

When Thou camest to earth for me;

But in Bethlehem’s home

there was found no room

For Thy holy nativity
.
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus;

There is room in my heart for Thee
.

An Open Invitation—RSVP
    E mily Elliott (1836–1897) surely would have had plenty of encouragement with her early hymn writing ventures. After all, she had an uncle and two aunts who both wrote hymns, and her father was rector of an Anglican church in Brighton, England.
    Still, it would take passionate faith instead of simple encouragement to produce, as she did, 140 hymns in her lifetime.
    Elliott’s passion for the Lord was obvious and bent to a purpose—the purpose of helping the poor and the dispossessed. Her life was spent in rescue missions and benevolent associations. Her care for the infirm is shown in a book of verse,
Under the Pillow
, which she wrote exclusively to comfort those who were bedridden.
    Elliot was also very involved with the relatively new Sunday school movement, providing literacy skills, religious education, and, in many cases, food and clothing to children in major industrial centers.
    It was for some of these children that Elliott wrote “Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne,” based on Luke’s Gospel. Despite publishing several books and no doubt earning an income from them, Elliot had “Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne” published privately for the children at the Sunday school of her father’s church. It was an attempt to show, in simple terms, the extent of the sacrifice that was Christ’s life.
    Elliot’s hymn left the children in no doubt that Christ wasn’t angry, in spite of having visited humanity and been repaid with scorn and a crown of thorns. Indeed, there would come a day when He would call out to each of them and invite them to come stand by His side. For the hungry, ill-educated, and short-lived children of the Industrial Revolution that must have been a wondrous invitation.
    Of course, others thought so, too, and the hymn didn’t long remain exclusively with her father’s church. An invitation like that was meant to travel the world, and here’s the good news—it still stands!
    In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to