Hark the Herald Angels Sing? (No they didn't and can't). (Then some fun)

My friend and Wise Woman the Revd. Dr. Mary Luti has been publishing some delightfully wise and whimsical musings about Angels on her Face book page.

Mary reminds us that the Angels of the Bible don't have wings, nor do they sing.(We have confused them with Cherubim  - an entirely different heavenly order).

On a serious and important note Mary reminds us that we do not become Angels in heaven.  We will be resurrected human beings.

She and I also strongly resist one of the popular responses to death in the Christian or nominally Christian world is to say "God wanted another Angel".

That's a particularly cruel thing to think or say when a child dies. God wanted another Angel?  As if God didn't have enough, so God decided that my darling child should be snatched away from me to swell his Corps of Angels.  What a dastardly God that would be.

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Angels don't sing so "Hark the Herald Angels sing is plain wrong!  In truth Charles Wesley did't write that.  He wrote "Hark how all the *welkin rings -  glory to the King of Kings"

(  * an old word meaning "clouds"  which has passed out of use in English")

Wesley's hymn has been greatly mucked about with. It originally had 10 four line stanzas, that would make for 5 eight line verses, more than modern congregations could stomach.   It truth I think that many of us cannot  comprehend Wesley's theology, it's just that we lime belting out "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" at the end of each verse as we sing it to the familiar  tune which has been adapted from Mendelssohn!

AND NOW

One response to Mary Luti's entry was this 

"My dad grew up in East Boston, in those days that's where the ocean liners came in, and being an unsupervised kid he hung out at the docks. One year the British seamen were singing, "Hark the herald angels sing - Wallis Simpson stole our king."

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And then there is this (some materials from Wikipedia)

Beecham's Pills were a laxative first marketed around 1842 in Wigan, Lancashire. They were invented by Thomas Beecham (1820–1907), grandfather of the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham (1879–1961).

The pills themselves were a combination of aloe, ginger, and soap, with some other more minor ingredients. They were initially advertised like other patent medicines as a cure-all, but they actually did have a positive effect on the digestive process. This effectiveness made them stand out from other remedies for sale in the mid-nineteenth century.

Wonderful pills indeed!

The hymn "Hark the Herald Angels Sing"  gave rise to some unofficial and free 'advertising" for them.

Sing alone with me!

Hark! the herald angels sing
Beecham’s pills are just the thing
Two for a woman, one for a child,
They will make you meek and mild.

Another version reads: 

“Hark the herald Angels sing, 

Beecham’s Pills are just the thing

Two for a parent, one for a child, 

half for a baby meek and mild. 

If you want to go to Heaven, you must eat at least eleven, 

If you want to go to Hell, you must eat the box as well, 

Hark the herald Angels sing, 

Beecham’s Pills are just the thing.”

Since Beecham's pills were a laxative I end with:

"And so it goes"