(from the 1903 Book Studies of Familiar Hymns by Louis F. Benson, D.D. The Westminster Press, Philidelphia.)

It was the sight of Bethlehem itself, one feels very sure that gave Phillips Brooks the impulse to write this hymn. He was then rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, in Philidelphia, and had spent a year's vacation traveling in Europe and the East. "After and early dinner, we took our horses and rode to Bethlehem," so he wrote home in Christmas week of 1865. "It was only about two hours when we came to the town, situated on an eastern ridge of a range of hills, surrounded by its terraced gardens. It is a good-looking town, better build than any other we have seen in Palestine. . . . 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 caves here), in which, strangely enough, the put the shepherds. The story is ubsurd, but somewhere in those fields we rode through the shepherds must have been. . . . As we passed, the shepherds were still 'keeping watch over their flocks,' "or leading them home to fold." Mr. Brooks returned in September, 1866, and it must have been while meditating at home over what he had seen that the carol took place in his mind. The late Arthur Brooks assured the writer that it was not written until 1868.

In the programme of the Christmas service of the Sunday-school of the Church of the Holy Trinity in that year the carol was first printed, and it was sung to the music written for it by Mr. Lewis H. Redner.

Its history as a hymn begins then, and a considerable share of the credit for its popularity must be given to Mr. Redner, at that time organist of the church, superintendant of the school, and teacher of one of its classes. The place of the carol in the books is now established, and new tunes have been and will be written for it. But it is safe to say that Mr. Redner's music was what carried the carol into notice and popularity. If the tune to which it has been sung at that service had been unsuccessful, it is unlikely that the carol would have been reprinted or heard again, at least during Bishop Brooks's life.

With this view of the case it seemed to the present writer well worth while that an account, as circumstantial as possible, of the genesis of the tune should be secured from the one man living who knows it. And standing over Mr. Redner in his Walnut Streen office in Philidelphia one winter afternoon, waving aside the modest protests and gently prodding the reluctance of that genial composer, he as happy in obtaining the following written statement of the circumstances: "As Christmas of 1868 approached, Mr. Brooks told me that he had written a simple little carol for the Sunday-school service, and he asked me to write the tune to it. The simple music was written in great haste and under great pressure. We were to practice it the following Sunday. Mr. Brooks came to me on Friday, and said, 'Redner, have you ground out that music yet to "O Little Town of Bethlehem"?' I replied, 'No,' but that he should have it by Sunday. On the Saturday night previous my brain was all confused about the tune. I thought more about my Sunday-school lessen than I did about the music. But I was roused 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 not I ever thought the carol or the music to it would live beyond that Christmas of 1868.

"My recollection is that Richard McCauley, who then had a bookstore on Chestnut Street west of Thirteenth Street, printed it on leaflets for sale. Rev. Dr. Huntington, rector of All Saints Church, Worcester, Mass., "asked permission to print it in his Sunday-school hymn and tune book, called The Church Porch, and it was he who christened the music 'Saint Louis.'"

The date of Dr. Huntington's book, 1874, does not imply a very prompt recognition of the merits of the carol even as available for use in the Sunday-school. Nor does its appearance in that book imply that the carol passed at that date into general use in Sunday-schools. But gradually it became familiar in those connected with the Protestant Episcopal Church. By the year 1890 it had begun to make its appearance in hymnals intended for use in church worship. In 1892 (some twenty-four years after its first appearance) Bishop Brooks's carol was given a place as a church hymn in the official hymnal of his own denomination. This occasioned the composition of new tunes to its words for rival musical editions of that books, and also drew attention afresh to the earlier tune of Mr. Redner. It seems, too, to have settled the status of the hymn, recent editors being as reluctant to omit the hymn as their predecessors had been to recognize it.

There is, however, nothing unusual or surprising in this delay in admitting the carol into the church hymnals. Almost all hymns undergo such a period of probation before they attain recognition; and it is for the best interests of hymnody that they should. In this particular case there was an especial reason for the delay. There had to be a certain change in the standards by which hymns are judged before a carol such as this could be esteemed suitable for church use. In 1868, it is likely, not even its author would have seriously considered it in such a connection.

from the 1903 Book Studies of Familiar Hymns by Louis F. Benson, D.D. (The Westminster Press, Philidelphia).