Retro: Community Centre and Belgium Cookies

When Who is He in Yonder Stall? was first published, every verse was a couplet of its own, making 10 verses, almost all starting with “Who is He”. 90 years later, in 1956, in the Worship and Service Hymnal, Donald Hustad combined two couplets for each stanza, giving the song the form it has today. My […]

Benjamin Russell Hanby’s 1866 song starts with a Baby in a stall. But we watch as the Baby becomes a Man. What kind of a Man is He? Who is He the peo­ple blessFor His words of gen­tle­ness?Who is He to whom they bringAll the sick and sor­row­ing? I don’t know what Hanby had in […]

Benjamin was 33 years old when he wrote this song. By this time he was probably living in Chicago, but he had moved there from his home state of Ohio. Although it could be argued that this song is not a Christmas song, it is often sung at Christmas. It fits into a category of […]