Once In Royal David's City

Album: Christmas Greetings From Mantovani And His Orchestra (1848)
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Songfacts®:

  • Irish children's poet Cecil Frances Alexander wrote this. Cecil knew that children loved poetry and could memorize scripture quickly. Many of her poems were written to help make the Bible more understandable to them. In 1848 she published a volume of these hymns for children that has probably never been equaled. Amongst the hymns she wrote are "There Is A Green Hill Far Away" and "All Things Bright and Beautiful." Two years after her volume of children's hymns she married William Alexander, a parish minister who later became a Bishop and then Archbishop of Ireland. In the early days of their marriage, they served a church in an impoverished rural area. Later she gave the profits from her hymnbook to support handicapped children in the north of Ireland. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England

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