O Little Town of Bethlehem

MY KIND OF CAROL

I would not be able to say just why O Little Town of Bethlehem became my favourite carol. Perhaps it is a bit like falling in love - it just happens ... boom ... and you find yourself head over heels,  and you could not usually give a fully rational reason for what has happened.

It could very well have been the fact that what occurred on that first Christmas Day was in such stark contrast to what we have seen so many times - the long motorcades with police on motorcycles with sirens blaring and lights flashing when some very important personage was moving with great pomp and ceremony from point A to point B. Traffic carrying us lesser mortals would be brought to a halt at the roadside until the very obviously important person had zoomed past. There are many things one could say about the extravaganza but "how silently, how silently ..." would certainly not be one of them.

Perhaps it was not anything so highfalutin. I was just grabbed by the beautiful tune and the lovely words that proclaimed profound truths so simply. Much later I learned a bit more about the story of the carol and its composer and it was all so good to hear. Phillips Brooks, who composed this charming carol, was the rector of a small Episcopalian parish in Philadelphia. He was considered the greatest American preacher of the nineteenth century. In 1865 he went on a tour of Europe and the Holy Land. On Christmas Eve he went on horseback from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and the sight of Bethlehem lying so still below captivated him. He assisted in the celebration of the Midnight Mass in the Church of the Holy Nativity. The seeds which would produce this carol were sown then. It would take three years for them to blossom. In 1868 Brooks produced the carol. He asked the church organist Lewis Redner to set it to music. Under some pressure he did it, mainly for the Sunday school. He relates how one night he heard angelic voices singing. He awoke in the middle of the night and jotted down the treble of the tune, adding the harmony later. Brooks changed "the undefiled" to "mother mild" because the former words seemed to support the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception!

Brooks was invited to become the rector of Holy Trinity in Boston and was later elected Bishop of Massachusetts. I fell in love with the carol when I first heard it. How gratifying to learn much later that its composer had supported the abolition of slavery and the extension of the franchise to emancipated slaves. What a wonderful bonus - I liked his music and found out that I liked his politics, too.