Dr. John Knowles Paine, Professor of Music at Harvard University, and author of the Oratorio of "St. Peter," composed a cantata to the great Christmas Ode of Milton, probably about 1868. Professor Paine died Apr. 25, 1906. It is worth noting that John Milton senior, the great poet's father, was a skilled musician and a composer of psalmody. The old tunes "York" and "Norwich," in Ravenscroft's collection and copied from it in many early New England singing-books, are supposed to be his. The Miltons were an old Oxfordshire Catholic family, and John, the poet's father, was disinherited for turning Protestant, but he prospered in business, and earned the comfort of a country gentleman. He died, very aged, in May, 1646, and his son addressed a Latin poem ("Ad Patrem") to his memory. "HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING." This hymn of Charles Wesley, dating about 1730, was evidently written with the "Adeste Fideles" in mind, some of the stanzas, in fact, being almost like translations of it. The form of the two first lines was originally-- Hark! how all the welkin rings, "Glory to the King of Kings!" --but was altered thirty years later by Rev. Martin Madan (1726-1790) to-- Hark! the herald angels sing Glory to the new-born King! Other changes by the same hand modified the three following stanzas, and a fifth stanza was added by John Wesley-- Hail the heavenly Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all He brings, Ris'n with healing in His wings. _THE TUNE._ "Mendelssohn" is the favorite musical interpreter of the hymn. It is a noble and spirited choral from Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's cantata, "Gott ist Licht." "JOY TO THE WORLD, THE LORD IS COME!" This inspirational lyric of Dr. Watts never grows old. It was written in 1719. Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns! Let men their songs employ While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy. Dr. Edward Hodges (1796-1867) wrote an excellent psalm-tune to it which is still in occasional use, but the music united to the hymn in the popular heart is "Antioch," an adaptation from Handel's Messiah. This companionship holds unbroken from hymnal to hymnal and has done so for sixty or seventy years; and, in spite of its fugue, the tune--apparently by some magic of its own--contrives to enlist the entire voice of a congregation, the bass falling in on the third beat as if by intuition. The truth is, the tune has become the habit of the hymn, and to the thousands who have it by heart, as they do in every village where there is a singing school, "Antioch" is "Joy to the World," and "Joy to the World" is "Antioch." "HARK! WHAT MEAN THOSE HOLY VOICES?" This fine hymn, so many years appearing with the simple sign "Cawood" or "J. Cawood" printed under it, still holds its place by universal welcome.