Dear reader,
How’s the end of your semester coming along? If you’re anything like me, an avalanche of papers and projects might be interfering with your plans to settle in for a long winter’s nap. Still, Christmas break is in sight, and I’ve been feeling festive.
Specifically, I’ve been listening to Christmas hymns. One favorite of mine, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”, is adapted from an 1863 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The version we usually sing tells of church bells that, despite the world’s contention, ring out a Christmas message of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
Though beautiful, this version omits two stanzas of Longfellow’s poem. The oft-forgotten fourth and fifth verses reveal a political context and a social commentary: Longfellow is writing about the devastating American Civil War, which has challenged his faith in any promised peace.
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered from the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!
To me, these stanzas give Longfellow some credibility. He was speaking from personal experience when he said “hate is strong / and mocks the song / of peace on earth, good-will to men!". As I mourn the division and vitriol scarring our contemporary world, I remember that Longfellow wrote these words in even less peaceful circumstances:
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, goodwill to men.
This issue of The Political Review grapples with current events that might seem like a cause for despair: war raging between Israel and Palestine, rising authoritarianism across the globe, violence against women, and more. One author even writes of the lingering impact of the Civil War, 161 years after Longfellow lived through it.
In the face of these injustices, how can we be peacemakers? I suspect that the answer is not simply to back off or to ask everyone to calm down. Though he abhorred war, Longfellow understood that the pre-war status quo was far from peaceful. The single father allowed his 17-year-old son to enlist in the Union Army, undaunted by the potential grief, in his hope that the right would eventually prevail.
Similarly, our authors ring in peace on earth by taking a stance. They don’t always agree with each other (just as you surely won’t agree with all of them), but they disagree with grace and civility without compromising their vision for a better world. This Christmas season, I hope you hear the bells–even if only in a Mariah Carey song–and I hope they call you to be a force for peace.
Merrily,
Jane
Editor-in-cheif