Written in 1868 by Phillips Brooks, this popular Christmas carol is published in 725 hymnals. I've set it to the sound of harp for effect. Lyricist Phillips Brooks, D.D., was born at Boston, Dec. 13, 1835, graduated at Harvard College 1855, and was ordained in 1859. Successively Rector of the Church of the Advent, Philadelphia, and Trinity Church, Boston, he became Bishop of Mass. in 1891, and died at Boston in Jan., 1893. His Carol, "O little town of Bethlehem," was written for his Sunday School in 1868, the author having spent Christmas, 1866, at Bethlehem. His hymn, "God hath sent His angels to the earth again," is dated 1877.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)
In 1865, Phillips Brooks spent some time in Israel, and was in Bethlehem for Christmas. He rode on horseback through the fields around Bethlehem, and attended the Church of the Nativity on Christmas Eve. At that time, Brooks was rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. This hymn was probably inspired by this journey, but Brooks did not complete the hymn until 1868. That year, he commissioned a tune for it from his church organist so that it could be sung at the Sunday school service at his church for Christmas on December 27, 1868. It was originally written in five stanzas, but the fourth is usually omitted.
The hymn focuses on the relative silence of the birth of Christ - Bethlehem was just a little town, and only a few people paid attention to the event. The heraldic chorus of angels is minimized in the lines.
There are two tunes in common use with this text, and some hymnals include both. ST. LOUIS was commissioned by Brooks for the text in 1868 from the organist for Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Lewis Redner. Redner delayed composing the tune until the night before it was to be sung for the first time, on December 27, 1868. He later wrote, “Neither Mr. Brooks nor I ever thought the carol or the music to it would live beyond that Christmas of 1868.” How