Some of you are familiar with the name, Phillips Brooks. Phillips Brooks was a big preacher both physically and mentally. Standing 6 feet 6 inches behind the pulpit of the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, he would speak powerful sermons at the rapid rate of 250 words per minute. Although he was a giant of a man, and a bachelor, he loved children dearly. 

It was December, 1868 and Dr. Brooks was laboring over a Christmas sermon. He could hear his organist, Lewis Redner, rehearsing Christmas carols in the sanctuary. While thinking of a recent trip to the Holy Land, he decided to write a Christmas song for his Sunday School children. After he had composed the words, he took them to Mr. Redner and asked him to compose some music to fit the words. Redner carried the poem in his pocket for several days, and then, on the night before Christmas, he awoke with a melody running through his mind. Later he said the music seemed to “come down from Heaven.” He got out of bed and wrote the notes down, and that Christmas morning in 1868 the children of Holy Trinity Church sang for the first time “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”