Town of Bethlehem

Episcopal Bishop Phillips Brooks was such a remarkable man that when he died, a five-year-old girl said to her mother, “Oh, mama, how happy the angels will be.” Only a radiantly angelic character could merit such a reward. But his life was not always crowded with such honor and deserved praise.
As a Latin teacher in Boston he was a miserable and conspicuous failure. It was only when he entered the Christian ministry that he found himself, and became the hero among men, the saint among sages and the prince of American preachers.
In 1865, while he was rector of Holy Trinity Church, Philadelphia, the thirty-year-old minister made a trip to the Holy Land.
His congregation was so devoted to him that they were loath to give him up even for such an eventful trip, and one Church paper wrote,
“He will go accompanied with the prayers of thousands for his happy journeying and his safe return.”
On December 24, Christmas Eve, he made the trip from Jerusalem to Bethlehem on horseback. He noted in his diary,
“Before dark we rode out of town to the field where they say the shepherds saw the star. It is a fenced piece of ground with a cave in it, in which strangely enough, they put the shepherds.” Later that night he attended religious services in an ancient basilica said to have been built by Emperor Constantine early in the fourth century. The service lasted five hours and made clergyman. He returned home with “Palestine singing in his soul,” little dreaming that three years would pass before the seed planted on that trip would bear fruit.
As he planned his services for Christmas 1868, the pastor thought again of the Holy Land and the inspiring visit he had enjoyed there many months before.  Combining preparation with memory, looking forward and backward at the same time, he was moved to express his feelings in a beautiful Christmas carol, written especially with the children of his flock in mind. The new hymn he wanted them to sing that Advent contained these lovely lines:

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
For Christ is born of Mary, and gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars together, proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God the King, and peace to men on earth!
How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is giv’n;
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.
Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed Child,
Where misery cries out to Thee, Son of the mother mild;
Where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.
O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!

The following day, when Lewis Redner, Church organist as well as Sunday School Superintendent, came into the pastor’s study,
Brooks handed him a sheet of paper on which he had written the five stanzas on his new hymn.
“Lewis,” he said, “why not write a new tune for my hymn? If it turns out to be a good tune, I’ll name it ‘St. Lewis’ after you.”
The organist looked at the stanzas and replied, “I’ll do what I can, but if it is a success, why not name the tune ‘St. Phillip’ after you?”
Although he had ample time in which to compose the new tune, Redner delayed writing anything down until it was almost too late. 
“No inspiration,” he complained. The night before the minister planned for the children to sing his new song, Redner had not come up with any music whatsoever. On Christmas Eve, at the very last minute, the inspiration came. He fell asleep worrying about the music, and woke up suddenly in the middle of the night with a new tune ringing in his ears. He wrote down the melody as quickly as he could on a piece of paper close by, and went back to sleep. 
Early the next morning he harmonized the melody and the children sang it for the first time on December 27, 1868.
Brooks later paid tribute to his organist-friend without embarrassing him by naming the tune after him, with a different spelling of the name, calling it
“St. Louis.” The music had thus no connection whatsoever with the city of the same name, though some have tried in vain to establish one.
While Brooks (1835-1893) and Render (1831-1908) remained bachelors all their lives,
they lived to see the Christmas carol in which they collaborated become one of the favorites of children the world over.