By Dan Shine
Voice Columnist
The Rev. Phillips Brooks
A Most American Christmas Carol
Of all the Christmas Carols, there is one that is very American, very unique, and possessed of an interesting backstory. The tale is still told of a young minister who made a pilgrimage to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, 1865. Rev. Phillips Brooks tells his story like this:
“After an early dinner, we took our horses and rode from Jerusalem to Bethlehem,” as he wrote in a letter sent home during Christmas week of 1865. “It was only about two hours later when we came to the town, situated on an eastern ridge of a range of hills, and surrounded by its terraced gardens. It is a good-looking town, better built than any other we have seen in the area. 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 (all the Holy Places are in caves here), in which, strangely enough, they put the shepherds. The story is absurd, but somewhere in those fields that we rode through the shepherds must have been. As we passed, present-day shepherds were still ‘keeping watch over their flocks or leading them home to fold.’
“I remember especially on Christmas Eve, when I was standing in the old church at Bethlehem, close to the spot where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing hour after hour with the splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voices that I knew well, telling each other of the ‘Wonderful Night’ of the Savior’s birth, as I had heard the year before; and I assure you I was glad to shut my ears for a while and listen to the more familiar strains that came wandering to me halfway round the world.”
Upon returning to America in 1868, Brooks wrote the lyrics to a Christmas Carol that would be sung again and again for centuries:
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 to-night.
Three years had passed since his pilgrimage when the minister approached his organist, Lewis H. Redner, and asked him to create the music that would turn poetry to song. It was midweek, and the minister made it clear to the organist that song must be ready to be sung on the following Sunday. On Friday, Rev. Brooks said, “Redner, have you ground out that music to “O Little Town of Bethlehem yet?” The organist replied that no, he had not, but he believed he would have it ready by Sunday.
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.
Saturday night came, and still there was no melody ready for the Sunday service. Not surprisingly, Redner went to bed in mental and physical turmoil.
How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.
Thus did Redner explain what happened next, “I was aroused from sleep late in the night hearing an angel-strain whispering in my ear, and seizing a piece of music paper, I jotted down the treble of the tune as we now have it, and on Sunday morning before going to church, I filled in the harmony. Neither Mr. Brooks nor I ever thought the carol or the music to it would live beyond that Christmas of 1868.”
O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us to-day.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel.
But the hymn did live on, even unto this day. And in fact, it was sung on Christmas Day, 1941, at a church service attended by President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had met to provide cooperative leadership as America entered what would be called World War II. Shortly thereafter, Churchill returned to England, recalling the words of one of the most beloved of Christmas carols, words that were entirely new to him, but words that would never be forgotten.