31 Days of Song, Day #30

Today I got some extra hours at work, and tomorrow I'm working an 8-hour shift.  I don't really want to, but hurray for more money! :)

"O Little Town of Bethlehem" is another classic Christmas song that's really hard to find a good version of!  I pretty satisfied with this one though.  Enjoy!

* Bethlehem . . . though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel.  Micah 5:2

At nearly six feet six, weighing three hundred pounds, Phillips Brooks cast a long shadow.  He was a native Bostonian, the ninth generation of distinguished Puritan stock, who entered the Episcopalian ministry and pastored with great power in Philadelphia and in Boston.  His sermons were topical rather than expositional, and he's been criticized for thinness of doctrine.  Nonetheless he's considered one of America's greatest preachers.  His delivery came in lightning bursts; he felt he had more to say than time in which to say it.
   While at Philadelphia's Holy Trinity Church, Phillips, thirty, visited the Holy Land.  On December 24, 1865, traveling by horseback from Jerusalem, he attended five-hour Christmas Eve service at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.  He was deeply moved.  "I remember standing in the old church in Bethlehem," he later said, "close to the spot where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing hour after hour with splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voices I knew well, telling each other of the Wonderful Night of the Savior's birth."
   Three years later, as he prepared for the Christmas season of 1867, he wanted to compose an original Christmas hymn for the children to sing during their annual program.  Recalling his magical night in Bethlehem, he wrote a little hymn of five stanzas and handed the words to his organist, Lewis Redner, saying, "Lewis, why not write a new tune for my poem.  If it is a good tune, I will name is 'St. Lewis' after you."
   Lewis struggled with his assignment, complaining of no inspiration.  Finally, on the night before the Christmas program, he awoke with the music ringing in his soul.  He jotted down the melody, then went back to sleep.  The next day, a group of six Sunday school teachers and thirty-six children sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem."
   Brooks was so pleased with the tune that he did indeed name it for his organist, changing the spelling to ST. LOUIS, so as not to embarrass him.  The fourth stanza, usually omitted from our hymnbooks, says:

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.

* excerpt taken from Then Sings My Soul Special Edition by Robert Morgan, pages 52-53