History of Hymns: 'I Have Heard of a Tree ('Heaven's Christmas Tree')

“I Have Heard of a Tree” (“Heaven’s Christmas Tree”)
by Charles A. Tindley
The Africana Hymnal, 4036
Zion Still Sings, 61

I have heard of a tree, a great Christmas tree,
It was fixed in you Bethlehem’s stall.
The blessings of heaven for you and for me,
A Christmas present for all.
Refrain:
There is a package for me on that tree;
A precious token that someone loves me.
O yes, I can see, on Calvary’s Tree
That there is a package for me.

Charles Albert Tindley (1851-1933) was one of the eminent preachers of Methodism at the turn of the twentieth century. Emory University hymnologist James Abbington has called Tindley a “pastor, orator, poet, writer, theologian, social activist, ‘father of African American Hymnody,’ ‘progenitor of African American gospel music’ and ‘prince of preachers’” (Kimbrough and Young, 2006, p. v).

Tindley was born in Berlin, Maryland, under difficult circumstances; his mother died when Charles was just two years old. Economic conditions were difficult after the death of his mother, forcing his father to “hire him out.” African American scholar Bernice Johnson Reagon notes, “This practice was not unusual for freed Blacks. Hired-out workers often labored alongside slaves, experiencing much of the reality of the slave plantation. The major differences were that there was some remuneration … and hired-out workers did get the opportunity to go home” (Reagon, 1992, p. 41).

Tindley moved to Philadelphia as a young person, attending school at night. He said, “I made a rule to learn at least one new thing—a thing I did not know the day before—each day” (Kimbrough, 1992, p. vi). He was self-taught, never graduating from college or seminary, yet acquiring and reading more than 8,000 books in his library. He took Greek through Boston School of Theology and Hebrew through a synagogue in Philadelphia. Tindley was awarded two honorary Doctorate of Divinity degrees from colleges in North Carolina and Maryland.

From 1887-1900, Tindley served short-term itinerate positions until he became the presiding elder in the Wilmington District in 1900. Tindley was granted a license to preach from Bainbridge Street Methodist Church, where he was employed as a janitor between 1880-1885, becoming a member of the Delaware Annual Conference. In 1902, he was assigned to Bainbridge Street Methodist Episcopal Church, this time as its pastor.

In 1906, the congregation moved from Bainbridge Street, having gone through difficult negotiations to purchase Westminster Presbyterian Church, a sanctuary that seated 900. In its new location, the name was changed to East Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church. As the church grew to a multiracial congregation of 10,000, the facility was strained to its limits. After Tindley’s death, the church was named Tindley Temple. Tindley Temple United Methodist Church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

African Americans at the turn of the twentieth century in the northeastern United States were caught in the promise and the poverty of the Industrial Revolution. Unemployment was high among African Americans, many of whom had migrated from the South in search of work and a new life, only to find that overseas immigrants were competing for the same jobs, especially between 1880 and 1920, the same time that Tindley was developing his ministry in Philadelphia. Long hours, child labor, and poor working conditions were common.

African American scholars C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya describe the social conditions of the day surrounding Tindley’s hymns: