Carols are also a part of the celebration on Christmas Day, and how they cheered the patients in a hospital is described when

Nurses Sang Carols

The nurses enjoyed a breakfast served by candle light at 6:30 on Christmas morning at the Faxton Hospital in Utica, New York, and then exchanged greetings. After this, clad in their uniforms, including their blue capes, attractively red-lined, they formed in a procession and marched from floor to floor of the building singing the familiar Christmas songs. Young mothers and their little babies, in the maternity building, were not forgotten. The nurses marched from the main building in the cold morning and sang as they walked along the sidewalk until they reached the maternity department, where they continued their carols.

This self-appointed task conveyed pleasure beyond the power of words to express to the patients, some of whom were far away from loved ones. The act was one of those beautiful touches which unites the whole Christian world in a kindred feeling on Christmas Day.

The thoughtful hospitality of the Maier family in the village of Oberndorf, Germany, led one of the guests, the young priest Joseph Mohr, to write the well-known Christmas song,

“Silent Night”

At this party a festival play was performed in view of the approaching Christmas. It so stirred the young priest that instead of returning home he climbed the Totenberg, Mountain of the Dead, overlooking the village. He stood there in quiet meditation. The silence of the night, the blinking of the stars, the murmur of the Salzach River, all inspired him. Quickly he returned to his parish house and late that night the words of “Stille Nacht” were written. The next day he hastened to his organist, Franz Gruber, and requested that he write the music for this song. He composed the well-known tune. On Christmas Eve of 1818 the priest and organist were ready to offer their contribution for the first time. The organ proved to be out of commission but Gruber was ingenious. He hurried home and brought his guitar and to its accompaniment he and the priest sang “Stille Nacht” as a duet. It touched the congregation deeply and after the service the two friends, with tears of joy in their eyes, embraced on the steps of the church in gratitude for this impressive rendition. Since that evening the song has become one of the Christmas favorites all over the world.

Bishop Phillips Brooks was the friend of children as well as adults. His popularity as rector of the Church of the Advent in Philadelphia was unbounded and it continued when he went to Trinity Church, Boston. It was during a year’s vacation that he had an experience which later resulted in his writing the well-known hymn,

“O Little Town of Bethlehem”

In the course of his travels during this vacation he went to the Holy Land. On Christmas Eve he was in Bethlehem. He walked in the fields where the shepherds had heard the angelic chorus. He listened to the hymns of praise that kept ringing out upon the clear air. He saw the children of Bethlehem getting ready for Christmas. Two years later when he was back home his mind went back to his experiences in Bethlehem. He recalled the dark streets, the clear blue sky with stars, the quiet shepherds’ fields; and under the spell of these memories, in 1868, he wrote this Christmas hymn especially for the children of his Sunday School. His organist, Lewis H. Render, wrote the music for this much beloved song.

This graphic description by Annemarie Ewing in The Christian Herald tells of

Carols Sung by Children

“I can’t think of any holier sound for Christmas Eve than that of young voices, clear and sweet in the cold, singing the simple, tuneful melodies that can’t grow old. Last year it was my pleasure and privilege to know a small group of youngsters who wanted to go caroling Christmas Eve. They didn’t mind the cold or the long walk or the wind and snow. They wanted to sing!

“I can see those bobbing little heads now, all sizes and shapes—from Rose Marie’s tall, smartly hatted elegance to Babe’s roly-poly woolen cap, just under my arm. How eager they were, and what stories I had to tell them to keep them quiet till we got to each place! We planned to sing under the windows of all our special friends.

“And how we did sing! I do not know whether it was sweeter to stand there holding my hand before Babe’s candle while her big blue eyes were lifted up to see the book (she had to stand on her very tip-toes!), or whether it would have been more exquisite pleasure to have been sitting in my warm living-room, when the shrilly sweet voices of the children began with their own enthusiasm:

‘Joy to the world! the Lord is come;

Let earth receive her King!

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And Heav’n and Nature sing.

And Heav’n and Nature sing,

And Heav’n and Heav’n and Nature sing.’