Editorial of December 18, 2025

Christmas Hope

Given the deadly, antisemitic attack on Australia’s Bondi Beach this past Sunday as Jews gathered to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah, the Islamic State ambush in Syria on Saturday that killed three Americans and injured three others, and the violent, hate-filled rhetoric being spewed here in the U.S. by both sides of the aisle that many say may well be leading to a second Civil War, we reprint this famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

According to the website Poem Analysis, “Christmas Bells,” written in 1863, contrasts war’s despair with Christmas hope, reflecting a longing for peace amid the Civil War’s discord. Andrew Walker writes: “One of the most significant events that [Longfellow] would have experienced during his lifetime was the severe division of his home country, in the form of the American Civil War. Longfellow himself supported the abolitionist cause, but reportedly wished for peace above all in his home…”

Christmas Bells

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

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, good-will to men.”

We, too, pray for peace and good will this holiday season. It’s not too late for a meeting of the minds here in the U.S. Longfellow reminds us what’s at stake if we cannot come together as a nation.

From Flower-de-Luce (George Routledge and Sons, 1867) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.