Holidays - Seasons Greetings!

Down the road from Nain and Herod’s new city, Tiberias, thundering and clamping across the hard road of the plain there came a troop of Roman soldiers. These did not belong in the country, for no part of the land was, as yet, a Roman province; but they were continually coming and going either on errands from their masters, the governors of neighboring provinces, to Herod’s court, or they were passing through the country from Damascus and the eastern frontier to the sea. This troop, of about twenty men, was evidently on its way to Jerusalem, probably with dispatches for Herod; for had it been going to the sea it would have traveled by the road that ran back of Nazareth.

Without even drawing rein, the soldiers came hurtling in among the groups of men and women and children seated upon the ground at their meal. The terrified shouts of men, the screams of women as they caught up children from under the iron shoes of the horses, the high, frightened clamor of all, brought Mary quickly to her feet and sent her running back across the little stream toward the rest place.

Half the men of the troop had now dismounted and were kicking and cuffing the men, countrymen, merchants and strangers alike. With rough curses in the Coast Greek which all the East was now learning, the soldiers commanded water brought for their horses, and food.

While some men scurried to do the bidding of the soldiers, others edged sullenly out of the circle of the place, out of reach of spearheads, and stood angry and uncowed. These were the countrymen of Galilee, men of a yet unconquered race, who would be last of all Israel to be broken under the yoke of Rome.

The women still cried out in terror as they saw blows falling, and one child crying frightfully was heard above all the rest. A tall soldier, beating a Damascus pearl merchant with the flat of his sword, to hurry his service, stopped at the child’s shrill crying.

“I’ll stop him, mother,” he said gruffly. And before the terrified mother could turn away the child was snatched from her arms and swung high in the air. The tall soldier turned and shouted to a great red-bearded companion who still sat his horse, his spear flung carelessly across his thighs:

“Catch him on the spearhead, Titus Rufus.”

The red-bearded one brought his spear to position, and, even as the mother fell clutching at his knees, the tall soldier swung and tossed the child carelessly, with perfect aim, straight at the point of the spear.

At the last possible instant the red-bearded one raised the spear slightly, and deftly caught the child by an arm as the little body came flying toward him. Just as deftly, he tossed the child back to the mother where she lay upon the ground.

Mary stopped at the edge of the little circle, unable to move or cry out, her body and her will paralyzed in fright and mother horror.

The woman finding her baby again in her arms and unhurt swooned upon the ground. Mary ran forward picking the child up on one arm and kneeling to support the woman with the other. The soldiers stood, laughing roughly, but with a sort of coarse good nature. Then Mary looked up at them. Her eyes were lighted with the Motherhood of all the earth. The men did not know what it was they saw in that look of the Jewish maiden, but the rough laughter fled instantly from their faces. Awkwardly their eyes fell, and they turned away hastily to their business of food and drink.

Mary understood. They had not meant to harm the child. It was one of their tricks, a diversion. They had practiced it many many times, so that they did it expertly and with almost no danger to the child. From Spain in the distant west to the Euphrates that trick was acted. This woman, now opening her eyes from her faint and looking wildly around for the now quiet child, would never lose the fear of the Roman name. She would transmit it to generations unborn. If they had actually killed the child it might not have had upon this woman the effect of vague unreasoning fear that this play would have. And this man child: the tale would be told him until he would believe that he remembered it. He would even boast it to his fellows around the village well. He would grow up to hate Rome. But even in his boasting there would be that nameless, world-covering fear of that careless, ruthless power. Over all the world how many thousands of Roman soldiers had played that game of toss and catch! How many millions of mothers and men children would carry the memory of it through all their lives and breathe the terror of it into other lives!

Nazareth stood by the highway where men and armies of all the world came and went west and east. Mary knew the talk of her people. They were not a people shut in and narrowed to a belief that Jerusalem was the center of the world, as the people of Judea thought. She had never before seen Roman soldiers at so near a view, but her imagination, quickened now by suffering and much thinking, was able to construct the power of the mighty world empire out of the bearing and the looks of these men.

She saw them mount carelessly, without a look or a thought for the angry, vengeful men who stood about. She saw them ride on their way across the plain, and as she took up her journey behind them she somehow understood that her own life and her own problem had taken on a new breadth, a wider and more terrible aspect, from the sight of these men.

Her King was to sit on the throne of David, and He was to rule the world. But how could He rule the world, how, even, could He come to the throne of David while that mighty, engulfing power of Rome existed to throttle the earth? With sudden insight, she saw the grip of Rome on all the world and she knew that there could be no king of Israel, there could be no real king anywhere unless that king should first conquer Rome.

She did not foresee all that was to come. She did not perceive the three centuries of blood and stake and un-ending martyrdom that must come before her King should conquer Rome. But the horizons of her vision moved out almost illimitably in those few moments while she watched the flying troop. She understood that her King was not destined for the mere work of liberating the Jewish nation. Only the little and narrowing traditions and views of the people had reduced Him to that. Mary saw that He must indeed be the Prince of the whole world. She understood, with trembling, that there could be no truce, no peace, between Him and this tremendous Power of the West. The struggle would be a death grip between the two.

Her King must stand in the light of the entire world, with the entire world, Rome, against Him!

It was another of those things to be kept in her heart. She hurried onward, feeling more than ever the weight and the terrible loneliness of her soul under all these things. More than ever did she need and hunger for that other woman, that woman who would understand.

She traveled swiftly, for her heart was drawn by its need, and she was not burdened by the innumerable bundles which other foot travelers of the road carried. The East, then as now, was continually on the move, on visit or ceremonial; and usually it traveled in families and carried a large part of its household goods with it. Mary passed opulence snailing along in ox carts, and poverty, abject but patient and cheerful, staggering on under its meager, string-tied possessions. As she saw the sun declining toward the hills of Dothan, she was minded that it would be wise for her to attach herself to one of these humble family parties that she might have the protection of their company for the night. But her haste would not accommodate itself to the easy, shuffling pace of those whom she passed; and, too, the solitude, the calm and peace which the road had given her had become very dear. She was loath to have it broken by chatter and explanations with people who would not understand the necessity of this long, lone journey of hers.

In the great hall of his palace by the Tiber, Caesar Augustus, master bookkeeper of the world, was casting up the accounts of the nations of the earth. Before him, stretched on a frame was a chart labeled laconically ORBS TERRARUM-IMPERIUM ROMANUM: The Circle of the Earth-The Roman Empire.

In the center of the chart, in unrelieved white, were Italy and those parts that had been granted the rights of Roman citizenry. Augustus did not concern himself with these. They paid no direct tax and were not subject to compulsory levies of troops. His business was with those blue and red and yellow and grey parts of the map of the world in which were marked the tributary, the auxiliary, the vassal, the enslaved nations.

The ravages of the civil wars by which Augustus had risen to the imperial throne had exhausted and demoralized tht.6nances of the Empire. Whole nations had escaped the tax for years by giving aid to one or other of the factions that had rent the world. System had disappeared. That magnificent, inflexible order on which the safety of Rome rested had fallen to pieces. The methodical, thrifty soul of Augustus revolted at the wasted opportunities, the unworked riches of which the Empire was being cheated and of which it now stood in so great need.

He had set his clerks to work upon the lists of the last census of the world, requiring minute reports from each upon the particular province that was assigned to him showing the estimated changes which must have taken place in the wealth and resources of that region in the time that had elapsed.

Now with his own hand, as his eye traveled over the circle of the tributary earth upon the chart, he was writing out the lists of returns in money and men which each province must deliver to the Empire. A careful and a thrifty man was Augustus, Caesar of the Earth. Nothing should escape. Not the stone cairn by the Rhine nor the onion patch in the Nile mud should go unvisited. A man of calculated magnificences this, with a soul that could measure down to the detail of a village clerk.

The Empire was at peace. He hated war with all the hate of his prudent soul for waste and destruction of wealth and unreturning outlay. He was determined that this peace should be lasting. He would bring such order and system out of the chaos he had found that war would be no more possible. He would bring such wealth and commercial security to the people that all men, in their prosperity, should abhor the name of war.

From the Western Ocean to the Persian plains, from the frozen north to the edge of the southern desert the list should go out from his hand, to governor and satrap and tetrarch and king.

The head tax, the land tax, the measure of the waving crop, the salt that came out of the earth, the fishes that came out of the sea, all must be returned upon his books.

Every ruler, whatever his title, would be held responsible for the full return of the tax. The tenure of his authority would depend upon the fidelity with which he filled out the figures that stood on the books of the clerk of the Tiber.

East, west, north, south the lists went out from Rome and were laid before the eyes of perspiring kings and governors and rulers of every description. It made no difference that this king had already by extravagance or the waste of war reduced his people to the edge of ruin. It was nothing to Rome that one of her governors, to satisfy his own greed or to enrich his favorites, had many times farmed the taxes down to the very roots that stood in the soil. The tribute to Caesar was another matter. It must be found.

The lists came to Herod where he sat in Jerusalem in his old cruel years, looking back over a reign that in it had little but rapacity, patricide and greed. None knew so well as he how little the country could afford to raise the heavy new tax. He knew that he had taken away the upper from the nether millstone. He had taken the seedlings and the growth from the ground. He had muzzled the ox that treaded out the corn. But this had no concern for him. This Herod was not a king of his people. His sycophantic loyalty to Augustus had kept for him the name of king, beyond this he was nothing. Nevertheless, because he was called king, the prudent Augustus, would leave to him the manner of the taking of the numbers of the people and would assure him against disturbance and revolt among them. And the tax must be found.

Through all the land the proclamation went forth that every man was to repair to the city of his fathers, there to enroll himself among his tribe. There was no word of taxes. It was enough for the present that Herod’s men should have the complete roster of all the men of the nation. Later, when every name had been accounted for, so that none might by any chance escape, the tax-gatherers would go forth.

But all men knew what the census meant. And from Bersheba in the far south at the desert line to Dan in the north there was murmuring of the people at this new oppression that was in store.

Once David in his pride had attempted the numbering of the people, and calamity had come upon the nation. Since then no king had dared to command a counting of heads except in the time-honored way of the temple-by counting the Iambs of the Passover sacrifice. So it had been done all the days. It was impiety and sacrilege and invasion of the temple rights to command any other count of the people. Disaster and ruin would surely follow.

Men said that this meant the end of Herod’s rule.

There would be no king in Israel more. Others proclaimed that Rome herself must fall as a consequence of the outrage.

To Nazareth the order came and was posted, with blowing of trumpets, in the public place. Through the upland country of Galilee it went, rousing fierce resentment and stiffening the back of rebellion that was to break out in terrible fury in the days to come. These were anxious times, when young men talked rashly and old men trembled in their helpless rage and all good men prayed that God would withhold his scourge from the backs of the people.

Men came to Joseph talking wild and unrestrained talk to him as he toiled. He was a just man, they said: a servant knowing the Law Was it well that men should submit to this impiety, for which even the great David had been punished; and go up that their heads might be counted for the stranger and the oppressor like unto the beasts of the field?

Was he not a son of that David? Would he thus bring shame upon the blood of his ancestors by putting his head meekly into the stanchion of the defiler of the word of the Lord? Would he not rather proclaim his lineage and his house here, where he stood, and rise to strike a blow for the afflicted in Israel? What shame that he should go cravenly into the city of his father, David, there to announce publicly, to the joy of the unholy, that here was a son of the kings of Judah who bowed a willing knee to the despoiler of his country!

Would he not flee into the mountain fastnesses with them, there to await the coming of the Lord and the hour of His deliverance, that they might then strike with Him, for Him and Israel?

But Joseph had gained wisdom in the ways of the Lord.

He knew that the Savior, the Holy One of Israel was coming. But He was not coming with the sword of the flesh for the bodies of men. He was coming with the sword of the spirit that should strike away the fetters from the souls of men. And He would come in His own appointed way, neither needing nor desiring the shedding of blood to prepare His path.

So Joseph saw that the way of submission was the way of God. He would go, as was the command, to his own city; there to place his name among those of his people.

But, Mary?

The long hand of the clerk of the Tiber had reached out to touch a string of life that was greater than all the strings of power that were held in his hands. Caesar Augustus did not know that he was determining the birthplace of the One who was to rule Rome forever. He was not, in truth, determining that fact; for long ago God had looked upon little Bethlehem of Judah, and the prophet had foretold its glory. Caesar Augustus, in his clerkly order, was but arranging the way for the working of God’s will.

Then Joseph, looking upon Mary, knew suddenly that he could not leave her even for the short time that his journey to Bethlehem might require. He must go, and Mary must go with him. The end of the journey must be with God.

Mary rose up and swiftly, with eager, trembling fingers and noiseless, hurrying feet went about her meager little preparations for her journey.

It was a journey of a hundred miles and more. It was a way filled with perils and terrors for a girl alone, and Mary must go alone. She must face the odium of going secretly and furtively, for she could not tell anyone why she must go. But these things, the road and its perils and the thoughts of those she was leaving, had no power to deter her. The need of her soul for that other woman was imperative, peremptory. There was nothing, nothing large enough or strong enough to turn her heart back from that which it craved!

In the whispering dawn Mary left the house and made her way down the straggling hillside to the great road that ran past Nazareth from the sea to the hill country and Jerusalem.

There would be no need to ask the directions of the road. This great highway ran straight from Ptolemais, the Acre of a later day, through the heart of the land to Jerusalem. Romans, Greeks and Jews all knew it. It was the great artery of trade by which the West came to Israel.

Mary had almost no money for the journey, but that was little matter. The kindly hospitality of the road would not let her suffer. Kindness and charity to the stranger were not only traits of her people but they were enjoined most strictly by the Law. David himself had seen to the building of rest places along the unpeopled parts of the roads and the tradition of the sacredness of the wayfarer held strong among all the folk.

The real dangers of the road were from Herod’s hired soldiers and the bands of outlawed men living in the hills, half bandits, half patriots, whom Herod’s suspicions and jealous cruelties had driven into this way of life. The long, bloody reign of this Idumean king was drawing to dose in gloom and distrust. Fear, hate, rebellion were rife in the land.

The iron hand of power and repression was strong on every road. Soldiers were quartered over all the land. But always, just out of reach of the soldiers, in the difficult passes of the hills, lurked men watching for a chance to cut off some detached troop of soldiers or to plunder some band of infidel merchants who brought the abominated things and customs of the heathen into the land.

Mary knew all these things, but she had no real fear of them. She was following the need of her soul and the voice of the Angel. No harm could come to her. These things belonged all to the lesser, the ordinary parts of life. Her way was set above them. She could not escape the natural trepidations of a girl alone on a dangerous road. But over these and past them she must walk with steady, hurrying feet.

Before the sun came up behind the rounded height of Tabor she was well on her way across the rolling plain of Esdrelon, with the villages of Nain and Endor in the hills to her right. A beautiful land, a goodly land, this rich, dark plain; the heavy greens of the early Spring showing vividly against the soft black earth. The sheep dotting the round of the encircling hills, the oxen grunting on their way to the day’s toil, the onion beds in the flat black earth, the budding vines on the distant hillsides, the new wheat glistening with the dew on the wavy plain, all told of a country blessed in unbounded plenty.

But the plenty of the land was not for the moiling men and women who even at this hour of the morning were bending to their work in the fields. The tribute to Caesar, the wild extravagances of Herod, and more than all the rapacities of the tax-gatherers themselves took the products of the toil; took the fodder from the treading ox, took from the laborer his wage, took the heart from the willing people. Their patient, stooping backs were to Mary, as her eyes swept over the plain, a picture of Israel itself, the good land, and the land chosen of God, but bowed and harrowed under the drag of the oppressor. How long? Oh God of the fathers!

Nearly seventy years had passed since the terrible Pompey came storming the gates of the holy temple. And never a day of peace, never a night of rest and happiness had come in all that time either to Israel or to the people. Turmoil, slaughter, unrest, misery; these things were in the fingers of the hand of the great oppressor of the West. Seventy years of captivity worse than ever were the years in Babylon had been the portion of the land and the people. How long? Oh God on high! Mary breathed the supplicating question that was in the heart and on the lips of all the people. Then her soul trembled in sudden fear and adoration as she thought of the answering secret that was hidden in her own heart.

Mid-day found Mary resting alone under the shade of a giant terebinth that stood near the junction of the road from Main with the great Roman road which she traveled. There was a rest place at the meeting of the two roads, a khan such as have been the roadside inns of the East from all memory, with a walled corral and food and water for the beasts and some slight shelter for men. But Mary had continued on past the rest place and across the little stream that drained the plain toward the west. The whole wealth of the plain lay spread before her eyes, for at one side of the road the country stretched away in a gentle fall toward the chasm of the Jordan while at the other a broader and a longer slope reached down even to the distant sea.

The quiet, mid-day beauty of the country under the haze of the hot Spring sun, the peaceful lull that had fallen over the scene as men rested for a little, even the hum of the wayfarers at the rest place, threw a gentle curtain over the tired senses of the young girl so that she came to peace, a grateful peace with all outer things, and her soul was able to enter undisturbed into its holy of holies. Since the Angel had left her, she had not known such peace, such holy content and confidence. Now she was sure that the Angel had indeed meant her to take this journey in this way.

She was not, however, left long to enjoy the peace of her solitude and calm.

It was a thing to see. The late sun was ahead, across the hill behind Jerusalem. The city was a white jewel pronged by the great stone wall around it. Joseph pulled the ass to the side of the road because the pilgrims behind him were shouting. Without turning from the scene, he moved back along the flank of the ass until he touched Mary’s hand. “Jerusalem,” he said again. He said it as though it were an earthly anteroom to paradise, as indeed it was.

The sun would be gone in ten minutes and there was much to see because he could not stay in Jerusalem. His destination, Bethlehem, was still five miles to the south, but he did not mind the night walk if he could stop a moment and drink in all of this and remember it when he was old.

His eyes, and Mary’s too, moved in little darting glances, and they longed to exclaim to each other but there were no words. This was where God lived. They had been told many times that he did not live in the little synagogues around the country of Judea and far out in the diaspora. The synagogues were there to remind the Jews of God, to remind them of their duty never to live more than ninety days travel from the Great Temple of Jerusalem, never to fail, whenever possible, to go to Jerusalem for the Passover. Each year at the time of the first seder, 300,000 Jews stayed in the city and in the hilly fields around it.

Below was the Valley of Kidron, with the full little river running cold below the east wall of the temple. Gray-blue smoke hung still in the sky over the temple proper. This was the last sacrifices of the day, the last baby lambs on the altar. Inside, there were seven thousand Levitical priests to ascertain that each lamb, before sacrifice, was without blemish, and in the courtyards to the north were animals and birds to be bought for sacrifice.

The Porch of Solomon faced them, the marble walk and corinthian columns gleaming like teeth in a seven-foot mouth. Up the side of the great temple was the snowy stone wall, hung with a cluster of solid gold grapes four stories high. In the valley, the Golden Gate and the Fountain Gate slowly regurgitated the last of the temple pilgrims for the day. From the height, Joseph could look across the enclosed city and see Herod’s palace on the far side, a little south of the place called Galgotha.

Softly, haltingly, Joseph found his voice and, as he drank in the exquisite and almost fearful beauty, he began to tell the story to his wife. She knew the story as well as he, but she listened dutifully, interjecting a word here and there, or a question. He reminded her that he came of the family of David, even though his branch was small and poor. It was David’s son Solomon who had built this. He had commissioned Hiram, the King of Tyre, to draw the plans and do the engineering. The work was finished in seven years, a miracle of goodness. The temple was on Oman’s Rock. It was I,600 feet long and 970 feet wide. The bigger the temple got, the more remote Solomon felt from God, and he needed the solace of women, so on the Mount of Offense to the left he had built a palace and placed therein five hundred concubines.

The sin needed washing and, long after Solomon repented, the Jews split into two nations-Judea and Israel -and the Babylonians defeated them and reduced the walls of the temple. Now the Jews were the chattels of Roman emperors and the Caesars appointed Herod as king to rule the people.

The Herod who sat in that palace on the far side of the city proclaimed himself a Jew and made daily sacrifices, but he was not even a good hypocrite. Joseph had heard the elders talk about it in Nazareth, and they averted their eyes when they recited his crimes. Herod bent his knee to Rome. He married Mariamne and, after she bore him two sons, he became piqued and had the three slain. He married ten times and he was so cruel that Caesar Augustus in Rome said that it was safer to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son. This was a sacrilegious joke on the dietary laws, and Joseph did not like to repeat it.

Still-how could one say it?-he had also done good things for God. He had paid ten thousand workmen to repair the temple and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He made temple spires of marble and they glinted pink in the morning sun. He built a great outer portico around the temple and this was called the Court of the Gentiles. Nonbelievers could walk this far. The next inner walk was called the Court of the Women, then came the Court of the Israelite Men. Signs proclaimed that any nonbeliever who walked this far in the temple was liable to death.

Then came the smaller Court of Priests, and inside of it the temple itself. This consisted of two huge chambers. The outer was the Holy; the inner was the Holy of Holies. In front of the Holy was a heavy veil embroidered in rich color, with all the known flowers of the earth, and a variety of the fruits of the earth.

“Darkness is upon us,” said Mary. She had a feeling of foreboding. She wanted to proceed to Bethlehem for no reason other than that she was trembling and the baby was unusually quiet. Joseph stopped in mid-speech. He knew that she would not interrupt him unless there was a reason. He asked if she desired to get down and have privacy. She said no and, without further conversation, he led the ass westward into the valley and across the little wooden bridge over the Kidron and beneath the great wall of the city and then by the Valley of Hinnon and on up into the hills between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

It was soon night and moonless. Joseph trod slowly, stumbling on stones underfoot, and wondering how much of a man he would be if brigands sprang out of the dark. There was little traffic on the road; a few transients who lived near Jerusalem hurried by, trying to reach home without spending an extra night under the stars.

Something happened suddenly to Mary and she knew in a moment that this would be the night of the baby. She asked Joseph to stop and he became alarmed and asked if she was unquiet. “No,” she said. “I feel no pain, but we must find an inn. The baby-with God’s help-will be born tonight.”

Joseph was frightened. He knew nothing of these things.

The thinking Mary did about the events leading to this night was a kaleidoscope of happy and mysterious and supernatural things calculated to unnerve the most serene young lady. To have a first baby is, in itself, a towering, wordless joy, a living proof of the most common miracle, a sad tenderness to constrict the heart and mist the eyes. To give birth to a first-born who is God and the Son of God and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is, at age fifteen or any greater age, a heavier responsibility than any other person ever bore, an enormity of weight which could be maintained only by one too young to appreciate it.

This was the winter solstice of the Jewish year 3790.

The gaiety of the Feast of Chanukah had ended as Joseph and his wife left Nazareth. They had come down through Nairn and on down into the valley of the Jordan. It was hot along the valley floor, but the Jews of the upland country seldom risked travel by the direct route through Samaria and Sichar, where the people at the village wells were unfriendly and argumentative.

Each night, when the sun was gone and the road obscure, Joseph led the ass a little way off from the river, away from the road and into a clearing where there was very little brush and few insects. Then he tied the ass, tilted the goatskin and filled the earthen jar with water from it, and sat. There was not much to talk about. Their minds were troubled with momentous events far beyond the scope of their thought; far beyond the rationalization of two simple peasants of the family of David. On the few occasions when they discussed it, both Mary and Joseph became overwhelmed and shy. They lapsed into silences and Joseph would mend the conversational rip with a question about Mary’s family.

Mary was big with the baby, and awkward, but she managed to fetch the food and the bread from the pouch on the near side of the donkey, and to set it down as neatly and as appetizingly as possible. There was no meat. Even at home, they never had meat more than once a month. Mostly it was lamb, chopped into cubes and roasted and then set on a plate beside charoseth and other herbs and fruits.

They slept in the open, saving what little money they had for the day of the baby. Sometimes, when there was no moon, Joseph set the lamp on the ground and Mary removed her veil and brushed the long dark hair which hung to her waist. She said that she would like to bathe in the Jordan, and she said it wistfully because she knew that Joseph would say no, and a good wife did not dispute the will of her husband. On these occasions he said no. He said it gently, reminding her that her time was near, that this would be her first-born, and he would not assume the risk of the river. To this Mary made no reply. Joseph, touched with tenderness, said gruffly that the best he could do was to take some cloths to the Jordan, wet them and wring them out, and bring them to her. Mary said that she would appreciate it.

In the morning, with the sun still behind the Mountains of Moab, Joseph arose, adjusted his tunic, and fed the animal. He worked quietly, whispering to the jackass, setting the folded blanket behind the withers, adjusting and balancing the goatskin and the food bag, before awakening his wife. He felt an enormous compassion for this girl, but he could never explain it. Not even to himself. He had once felt this way toward a little boy who had a withered foot.

The road was busy at dawn. Sometimes Joseph had to wait until he could find room between parties going south. The road, it seemed, was always alive. The rich Greeks traveled south out of Sepphoris in sedan chairs, the servants shouldering the yokes easily and walking steadily, en route to Jerusalem to trade with the rich Jews. The northbound traffic came from Jerusalem and also from as far away as Egypt, and these merchants were laden with fabrics and metal objects and expensive spices. They left their elegant good wishes on the air behind them.

On the evening of the fourth day they were at Jericho, a few miles above the Salt Sea and within glance of Mt. Nebo to the east. Joseph wanted to stay at an inn, where they could pay for space on the floor, but Mary begged him not to do it. “This is not an important day,” she said. He knew what she meant.

“One does not see a great place like Jericho often,” he said softly, “It will be just as well if we eat at an inn and, as you say, sleep in the fields.” He looked away. “I was thinking of you.”

They ate at an inn on the far side of town, near where the wilderness begins. It was an ordinary place, catering to transients. It was a stone place, and one had to eat whatever the house offered. The food came in gleaming bowls, and Mary admitted to herself that it was better than anything she had to offer so, conversationally, she shifted the attack.

“There are many people in these places,” she said. Joseph shrugged. “A public house,” he said. He was a medium-sized man with deep brown curls hanging to his shoulders. The hair was thick and parted in the middle. His beard was thin and scraggly, but he wiped it with his hand as though it were full. This, Mary understood, was natural in a young man.

She ate leaning against a wall. She said it made her back feel good. He stood flanking her, a wall of protection against the crush of people entering and leaving the place, babbling as though this were the last chance to inflict their opinions on others.

It is better together,” she said shyly.

“When we must eat in the fields,” he said, “we will eat in the fields. This eating is rare.”

Mary ate well, stealing furtive glances at Joseph and wondering what she did to deserve all the tumult of happiness she felt when he was near. It was like a tame storm in her heart, a relaxation of caution accompanied by the excitement of knowing that she belonged to this growing boy. She had never been anywhere, except to visit old relatives, and now, in advanced pregnancy, she was seeing much and knowing much in a few days.

In the morning, Joseph led Mary and the ass into the wilderness. It was twenty miles to Bethany, and, from there, three to the heart of Jerusalem. A man with strong legs could walk it, leading an animal and a woman, before sundown. The wilderness is a barren place in the mountains, where nothing of consequence grows and the tiny peaks look alike, ochre and white and chalky, a place where bandits await the ornate sedan chairs and the sun smites the walker until the sweat itches his legs and softens the straps of his sandals.

Joseph stopped at the top of the rise. The ass stopped, and used a hind leg to kick the flies from the underside of his belly. Mary looked up, a tired child with eyes partly conscious of the scene.

“Jerusalem,” Joseph said, pointing. She looked. The wonderment of what she saw caused the nausea to fade. Her eyes lost the glazed look. She had heard her father describe this place when she was a little girl. A glance told her that the poor man did not know how to make anyone see Jerusalem. Joseph opened his mouth to speak, but what his eyes saw made his mind drunk and paralyzed his tongue.

Mary was alone; alone with the Word that was in her heart!

She did not realize that of all the people in the entire world she was the most alone. She only knew that the light of the Angel’s presence was gone; leaving but a dim, pale morning in its stead. She knelt on a little time in the breathless, empty silence of the little room; not thinking, nor praying, nor wondering; but adoring in simplicity and a holy fear.

When she arose and went out again to her work, she came upon a world all new: a world that had been subtly and infinitely changed for her.

It was true that the white flocks dotted the hills as always. Below the village men and women were hurrying out to the fields of the plain, as happened every morning. The flowers on the rutted hillsides wore the same colors that they had worn yesterday morning. The thread came twirling through her fingers in the wonted way. But these were only the outer and cruder points of contact of the world. The soul of the world had been changed to Mary. She had been picked up and put in the very center of all. With her God had begun the Salvation of the soul of the world!

The idea was infinitely greater than the dream of Israel to which Mary had been listening all her life. It was greater than Mary. It was greater than earth itself. Mary did not realize it now. But she was in the presence of it. Already it had taken its hold upon her. The work of salvation had begun.

The first, the single, the overwhelming impression was of loneliness.

In the past, when Mary had dreamed of the coming of the King, there had always come before Him some wonderful, revealing portent. The daughter of David whom God would thus honor would be pointed out to all the people by some work of His hand. She would be known instantly. The people would acclaim her with a joy and a pride proportioned to the depth of their longing through the years. Her name would be on every tongue. It would be written in every Jewish heart.

How different was this reality! There was no one to acclaim her. No man or woman knew that secret which God had hidden in her breast. None would have understood. She felt herself set apart, removed from all others of her kind. There was a seal upon her lips; God had set a seal upon her heart. Never again would she see or think or feel as others did.

Because she was the most perfect of God’s human creations, Mary was perfectly and intensely human. She loved her kind with sympathy and a depth of understanding that made her capable of being the mother of all. And because she was human she craved love and understanding in return. How gladly she would have breathed her secret into the heart of every daughter of Juda! But that was denied her.

She was a woman facing the most momentous thing that ever came to woman of this world, and her heart turned instinctively to other women, to look for counsel and understanding. But where was there a woman living in the world who could help her in this?

She went the accustomed round of her daily duties with the grave, serene manner of every day, but with heart aching in loneliness and fearsome bewilderment. Those about her, of her own household, were the last to whom she could have confided her awesome secret. Instinct, sharpened by suffering and apprehension, told her in what manner her revelation would be received by them.

She could fairly feel the smiles of patronizing disbelief with which the elders would brush away her dream, as they would call it. She could hear, in prospect, the very words in which the girls of her age would first deride and then blame her presumption. Mary was one of themselves. Did not all know her? Who was she to arrogate this great thing to herself?

Even the little children would learn that there was something strange about her and would stare at her!

She could not; oh, she could not bare the wonderful glory of her secret to incredulity, to comment, to derision!

Whither, then, could her heart turn? Contact with those about her began to weigh sorely upon her spirit. At times it seemed that her lips would no longer hold back the secret which came rushing to them. It seemed that she must cry it out in the face of all. Then it seemed that she must fly, fly from the sight and hearing of men and women, to the high hills and the desert beyond, to hide herself and her secret from the eyes and ears of all. She must shut herself away, she must wander the world alone and unknown, to guard her secret from eyes that stared and ears that listened, unbelieving!

Then, late one night, when all were sleeping, Mary prayed with tears to God; for all this was more than a maiden could bear. And the words of the Angel came to her in answer:

“Thy cousin Elizabeth.”

Mary remembered what she had passed over in the wonder and bewilderment of her own secret, how the Angel had told her that God had touched the aging years of Elizabeth and had wrought a miracle in them.

Now she knew why the Angel had shown this to her.

He was the Angel of God’s wisdom. He had foreseen her perplexity, her trouble, and these tears. And he had pointed out to her the one person in the world who would be able to understand.

The need, the hunger, of her heart for understanding, for another woman’s heart to which she might entrust her secret, took hold of her. She knew that roads could not carry her swiftly enough, until she could come to that older woman with the burden of her soul.

The road out of bethany threw a tawny girdle around the hill they called the Mount of Olives and the little parties came up slowly out of the east leading asses with dainty dark feet toward the splendor of Jerusalem. They came up all year long from Jericho and the Salt Sea and the Mountains of Moab and the north country of Samaria and Galilee in a never-ending procession to the great temple of Solomon. It was a spiritual spawning; a coming home; a communion with God at his appointed house.

Joseph had never seen such awesome beauty. The elders in Nazareth had described it as a rare white jewel set in the green valley between Kidron and Golgotha and he had asked questions about it but the elders-and his father too- seemed to lose themselves in arm waving and superlatives. Now he would see it. He reached the rise of the road, his feet tired and dirty from ninety miles of walking, and he unconsciously pulled the jackass a little faster.

“Are you quiet?” he said. His bride, called Miriam in the Aramean tongue, and Mary in others, jogged sideways on the little animal, and said that she was quiet. She felt no pain. This was the fifth day from Nazareth and, from hour to hour, she had progressed from tiredness to fatigue to weariness to the deep anesthesia of exhaustion. She felt nothing. She no longer noticed the chafe of the goatskin against her leg, nor the sway of the food bag on the other side of the animal. Her veiled head hung and she saw millions of pebbles on the road moving by her brown eyes in a blur, pausing, and moving by again with each step of the animal.

Sometimes she felt ill at ease and fatigued, but she swallowed this feeling and concentrated on what a beautiful baby she was about to have and kept thinking about it, the bathing, the oils, the feeding, the tender pressing of the tiny body against her breast-and the sickness went away. Sometimes she murmured the ancient prayers and, for the moment, there was no road and no pebbles and she dwelt on the wonder of God and saw him in a fleecy cloud at a windowless wall of an inn or a hummock of trees, walking backward in front of her husband, beckoning him on. God was everywhere. It gave Mary confidence to know that He was everywhere. She needed confidence. Mary was fifteen.

Most young ladies of the country were betrothed at thirteen and married at fourteen. A few were not joined in holiness until fifteen or sixteen and these seldom found a choice man and were content to be shepherds’ wives, living in caves in the sides of the hills, raising their children in loneliness, knowing only the great stars of the night lifting over the hills, and the whistle of the shepherd as he turned to lead his flock to a new pasture. Mary had married a carpenter. He had been apprenticed by his father at bar mitzvah. Now he was nineteen and had his own business.

I t wasn’t much of a business, even for the Galilean country. He was young and, even though he was earnest to the point of being humorless, he was untried and was prone to mistakes in his calculations. In all of Judea there was little lumber. Some stately cedars grew in the powdery alkaline soil, but, other than date palms and fig trees and some fruit orchards, it was a bald, hilly country. Carpentry was a poor choice.

A rich priest might afford a house of wood, but most of the people used the substance only to decorate the interior. The houses were of stone, cut from big deposits eighteen inches under the topsoil. It was soft, when first exposed to air, and could be cut with wooden saws into cubes. These were staggered in courses to make a wall. “Windows were small and placed high on each wall, so that, daily, squares of sunlight walked slowly across the earthen floor. Mary’s house, like the average, was small and set against a hill in Nazareth. At the front, there was a stone doorsill. Over it hung a cloth drape. To enter, the drape was pushed aside.

The interior consisted of two rooms. The front one was Joseph’s shop. In it were the workbench, the saws, the auger, the awl and hammers. There were clean-smelling boards and blond curls of shavings on the floor. In the back room there was an earthen oven to the left, three feet wide, six feet long and two feet high. The cooking was done in the stone-lined interior. The family slept on the earthen top of the oven. On chilly nights, the heat seeped through to warm the sleepers. To the right of the room was a table. There were no chairs because only rich Jews sat to eat, and they had learned this from traveling Greeks. Next to the table was a wooden tether for the ass. He was a member of the family, a most important member because he did the carrying of the raw lumber and the finished products, and he was also the sole means of transportation.

He was petted and loved and spoken to. On the tether, he watched Mary go about her duties. He flicked the flies from his ears and sometimes, when he tired of watching, his eyes closed and he locked his knees so that he would not fall, and he slept standing up. He was not a stubborn animal. He was most patient and he would stand while Joseph burdened him with a mound of objects. When the bridle strap was pulled by his master, the ass lowered his head, switched his tail against his flanks, and started off, the little hoofs making sounds like an inverted cup dropped in the mud.

Under the high cry of the women which the music of Heaven had waked out of the slumbering earth, there was another sound, a lower, a less articulate cry. There was in it pain, a dull pain, and a half dumb pain that seemed hardly able to find voice for itself. And there was in it hope, too. But it was a hope that did not find itself. A hope that seemed not yet formed to know and to trust the thing which it hoped.

The sons of men were waking to the music of Heaven.

They were bewildered, these sons of men. The sleep of life and of death was still upon them. They struggled for expression of the things that were stirring in them. They were slow to be aroused.

Yet they did surely cry, trying with hoarse voices and throaty cries to echo the voice of Heaven.

They did not rise to the harmony of Heaven as the women had begun to do. They did not understand so readily. Hope did not spring full grown and unfailing in them. Theirs was not the ready faith of heart. And, too, the habits of life held them in bondage of flesh and custom which they could not so easily break as could the women.

They were men. They were accustomed to deal with and think in the external things of life. They were unused to the elemental things. The supreme, the vital, the divinely simple things of life were hidden from them. And this thing was elemental.

A child is born! Sang Heaven.

To men, not understanding, it was no great thing. To them it was not a thing that stood out, an epochal thing, a thing with which the world began and ended, as it was to the women. It was, to the men, a little thing, a link with many other little things that went to make up a chain which was called life.

There was pain in the struggling, many-toned cry that came up from them to answer the call of Heaven to the King. And it was pain that was very real.

Men knew that they suffered. They knew that the world suffered. Oppression, sin, ruthless cruelty, these things had been from the beginning. They lay in the track of life. Men had suffered, through the will of other men. Power was power, and might was might. It was a part of the joy of power to exact the price from the lives of other men. So it had always been. Might was the strength to make other men do the hard things of life. This was not to be denied. The weak suffered. The poor had their wages taken from them. The little transgressor was thrown into the dungeon, while the great thief rode by at the king’s side. So it had always been.

The poor man suffered for being poor. The sinner was pushed back into his sin, because he was a sinner. So it had been in the days of their fathers. So it was now. So it would be-unless!

Unless! Unless God should indeed come to remake His world.

It was a faint, half believing note of hope that sounded through the hoarse cry of the pain of the sons of men. But it lived. The hope lived. It grew. It took voice. Hope, breaking through unbelief, breaking through the husk and crust of habit, through the chains of things as they are; hope breathed. And struggled for voice. And at last it cried. Hope cried aloud, in surprise, in half belief. And then, gathering breath and heart, hope shouted, hoarsely, from the depths of life, from the depths of men; shouted aloud its belief!

So the cry of the sons of men was joined to the cry of the daughters of earth, echoing clumsily the voices of Heaven in glory to God and on earth to men peace.

There were many things, as Mary heard, in that cry of the sons of men to the King.

Men cried and spoke, each according to his own way, to God in their voices.

Mighty men were there, who had been before the Lord. And they cried, wondering and adoring God. For they were minded of the Promise. These were men who had lived in the lonely places and had conquered the earth in the old, old time. Before God they had walked. And in their strength some had sinned greatly. And all from their height had fallen in some way. But the voices of these were raised now. For ever they had been men of quick heart and mighty faith; such as God loveth. And they called now to God and believed in the King.

And Mary loved the music of their voices to God, for such as these, she knew, men of stout heart and burning faith, would fight and die in the Kingdom of her Son, the King.

And men there cried, men of battle and plunder and raid, men quick to strike and short to anger. And these cried briefly, with thick tongues and few words, laying contrite hearts at the feet of the King who was come. For each understood the coming of the King in his own way.

And there came the voices of the millions of men, voices of priests and prophets, of kings and common men. They cried the sorrow of their hearts for sin, and ever rising in them came the cry of hope from their hearts.

Now the great, untutored chorus of all the men who had walked the earth was heard crying to God their faith in the King. Their cry was choked and unformed, like as the cry of men long dumb. The harshness, the ignorance, the blood and sweat of life, had drowned for them the tones of Heaven. They knew not how to cry and call upon their God. But Mary knew that the cry was of their hearts, the cry which is the only music in which God may be praised and she knew that it was well with them.

They cried of the hopeless struggles of life. They sang the song of the slave bending under the wheel, of the captive dragged at the tail of the chariot, of the poor ground into the soil.

They cried of the burden of sin that was in the world, so that a man could scarcely walk but that he walked in sin. Ignorance stood at the one side, and superstition, and the fainting loss of faith. Oppression stood upon the other side, and the will of the strong, and the will of the world. And, wandering, among all these things, they had sinned, they cried. But always, as they cried the louder, the note of hope rose higher in their voices. For the King was the King of hope, a King new born, the King of a world new born, a world of hope.

Then Mary heard the voice of the world about her.

Her heart trembled. This was not the voice of a world that leaped, quick hearted into the fire of faith.

Through the cry of the tears and the hope of the world that had lived, she heard the clamor and the cackle of the world that now lived, in these hills, in this the city of David, in Jerusalem the proud, in the world without, in that great, contemptuous Rome that sat upon the top of the world.

Would these, these who lived today, who busied themselves in the things of life and wealth, whose view looked no farther than the beeves and the shekels of life, whose god was money and power, who thought not of contrition nor of the blessed hope, but who from great Caesar down lived only in the body; would these cry with Heaven, singing the glory of God in the King, her Son?

They would not. Mary knew they would not. And even the Light that shone here from the Throne could not drive away the shadow of the cross that fell across her heart.

But there came now a greater cry, a cry that rose above all the other cries of earth and swelled up to Heaven and would not be denied, but must be heard.

It was the cry of the world yet unborn, the world that came unbidden out of the bosom of eternity to greet the King. A world of uncounted millions, a world that would not be bounded or held by anything but the immensity of God’s own self. And this world, both of men and women, cried high to God in a voice that went beyond all ages, crying:

Glory! Glory! Glory! To the King new born, Our Lord!

Then Mary, looking, saw poor men kneeling at the side of the stable and adoring God, her King.

And she knew that those millions of voices out of the womb of the future were calling into being the Kingdom of the King, her Son.

And as she looked, herself adoring, the King stirred.

And there went out upon the breathless stillness of the night, a cry, a feeble cry-the cry of a new born child.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace-! The anthem came from Heaven to Mary. Even in the veil of the shadow, her soul had been the first of all earth to hear Heaven singing its King.

And to her alone was it given in that hour to hear and know the song of the earth which the voices of Heaven had awakened and which was pealing now around all the earth in high, shrill, heart-melting sweetness.

There were tears in that song of earth, tears through which the song came bursting in swelling, straining joy. There was pain in that song, pain that was earth old, pain that had known no ceasing; and every pain was fused now into the high, glad note of glory triumphing. And there was patience and long travail in that song of earth, patience and the illimitable courage of suffering; and these things sang now all in glory to God. For it was the song of the women, the cry of the daughters of earth.

Eve sang in the terrifying, unknown loneness of the first birth pangs of earth. Rachael sang it to God in the sorrow of her barrenness. The benighted, the weak, the unguided, the motherless sang it in all the days and all the ways of the world.

Now it was the song of women from whom the yoke was being lifted. It was the glad, ecstatic cry of Motherhood come into its own. It was Woman, at last, coming to the shrine and throne which is her place in the world.

Mary heard the weeping of the Woman in the Garden, as she crept trembling away from the sight of the Lord. But now in the voice of that weeping there was the joy of the Promise fulfilled. The mother of earth cried to all her daughters of the ages that her rebuke and theirs was taken away. God was faithful. No more would He multiply sorrow unto them and unto their conception. No more should they bring forth in sorrow. For the head of the serpent was crushed. Eve saw it and was glad, and her daughters through all the earth cried with her, out of sorrow, out of travail, out of long enduring patience; crying out the glory of God in the Babe that was born to them all.

It was Motherhood and Infancy, the miracle of the world’s existence, crowned now in the Godhead of the Babe that lay in the manger.

In the Light that came from Heaven Mary saw the daughters of earth as they had been from the beginning, until now.

She saw the yoke which man in sinful cruelty and strength had forced upon the weaker one.

Out of the dim past there came trooping the millions of women, bearing chains, the immemorial spoil and loot of the conquering male. Out of the caves and the wild places of earth they came, in their eyes the look of the hunted. From out of burning cities they were led, in weeping leaden-footed bands, ever turning for a last look at the flames that rose over their dead. Out of the fields they were driven, still yoked to the beasts of burden at whose side they had been driven to work. Always the misery, always the loss and the piercing, grim pain of life had been theirs. Never a sorrow, never a misfortune, never a brutality in the entire world but that the greater, deeper portion was the woman’s.

So it had been from the beginning, from the nature of things. Creation had given women infinitely greater capacities and ways of suffering than had been given to men. And men, in their strength, in their cruelty and sin, even in the terrible things which they called religion, had ever worked to fill out all the capacities of women for suffering.

All this there was, and more, in the cry which Mary heard, the cry of the daughters of Eve, singing now their joy to the Babe that was born to them.

There was the cry of her own mothers of Israel. She heard them wailing in the land of death, in the baking, steaming mudflats of the Nile, where the wheel turned ever and the whip of the oppressor layover their bending backs. Their tired sighing came out of the long, long years of the desert wandering. Out of Babylon came the wail of those who lived and died in chains. And the nearer generations of her mothers, she heard them crying that age long cry for the One who was to come. Through them He was to come. Now He was come and their cry went up, the fullest, most gladsome voice of all the daughters of earth, glorifying God and this His Son.

And all the desolate ones of earth cried, too, in triumph.

Women who had wept in secret, because their arms might never feel the weight of a child, because God had not listened and had left them unblessed; all these cried out now, with Rachael risen from her tomb, with the women who go down to the burning ghats of the world, cried out with all those whom life had robbed, cried in great, glad voice the cry of those who had been forgotten and were now enriched in God because this Babe lived.

Now deeper than all, swelling through all the earth, came the cry of the common lot. The great, the uncounted majority of all women from the beginning to the end, the women bearing many children, in poverty, in patience and bravery and the face of the chances of life, the voices of these were legion and they filled all the earth. Hardship, the bearing of burdens, the carrying of water, the making of the home fires of the world, these were ever their part, and shall be. In the great, enduring bravery of their kind, they came forward, generation behind generation, filling the lines where hunger and disease and rapacity and war thinned the ranks of the children of men. Nor ever did they murmur, nor ever complained, but counted simply in the great heart of them that this was their business in God’s world. But now they came, many throated, deep voiced, strong in the strength of endurance, crying to the King that was born among the sons of men. And their cry was not for themselves. They were used to give all. To the end they would go on giving all. But to the King they cried, crying for the little ones who had never been set in the sun of life.

They cried of the babes whom poverty, disease and sin had sent crippled into the world. They told of Moloch, the world that in selfishness and suicidal folly had taken their children from their arms and had made them to run before they could walk, and had made them to work before they knew even how to play.

Because the King was nigh, was passing by, they had suddenly found voice, these many of all the earth. Now should they be heard, these women who knew the language of babes. To Him would their cry come, to this King that was born of women.

And Mary knew their voices, all, as they cried to her Son, the King.

She knew the quiver of pain that ran like a wailing minor note through the swelling gladness of their cry. Because she was the Woman, the Woman of the Promise, the cry of all women was the cry of her own soul.

The tears that crested the waves of joy in the voices of these women of earth were her own tears now, breaking in the joy and gladness of her soul.

Their prayers, breathed through the tears and the voices of joy, were her own prayers to the King, her Son.

Let these things no more be! 0 King of Heaven and now King of earth, these be the voices of the daughters of earth. Theirs are the burdens, theirs are the tears, and theirs are the travails of earth. Through them all men live. Through them the earth is peopled and is not a desert waste. Through them, and through them alone, there is beauty, there is goodness, there is grace found on earth.

King, listen unto their many voices.

And in the new found joy of their crying Mary knew that the King listened.

For this was He come into the world. For this was He promised of old to the Woman in the Garden, to make issue with sin and death.

She felt the cry of her own heart in this its great hour merging into the cry of these, the women of earth, the mothers of earth.

Once she had sung in her exaltation, “All generations shall call me blessed.” Now she knew that men through all the ages would write and sing and teach of her. But only these mothers of earth would ever understand. Only these women, who had looked upon a man child and called him king, would know what was in her heart now.

These were her kin, her sisters of the entire world. And with them she cried and prayed and gloried in the King that was come to lead the steps, to heal the wounds, to bathe the souls of the children of the daughters of earth.

The Angel saw the Babe lifted from the manger and laid in the circle of the mother’s arm. Bowing low before the miracle of motherhood divine he brought the homage of Heaven to a wonder such as not Heaven or earth had yet seen. Then, rising, he drew a circle of the Light of the Throne about the little head where it lay pillowed on the mother’s breast.

Now he wrapped an aureole, a softer, gentler circle of the light about the head of the mother. The cry of the Babe was stilled, as the cries of all the children of earth are stilled in the warmth of mother love. Mother and Babe slept.

Then the light which had illumined the stable went out with the Angel, leaving only those circles of the Light which stood about the heads of mother and Child. The Angel gathered the choirs of attending spirits, who had come singing from the throne to adore at the manger, and led them back toward Heaven. With them they carried the cry of the Babe, to God.

Out over the earth they winged their way, all silently, their voices hushed in the cry of the Child.

Earth did not hear the cry, for earth slept. Men did not hear the cry, for men were deaf and knew not that the heart of God cried out in the cry of the child. The sea did not hear the cry as the myriads of angels swept above, for the sea was filled with its own voice.

But other worlds heard the cry as it passed along, and looked to earth, wondering that it could be heedless of the great thing that was come to pass in it.

The sun heard the cry, as the legions of angels passed out of the shadow of earth and flashed glistening through the illimitable waves of light. And other countless, pale suns, even to the far-scattered last ones of the universe, heard the cry, and stilled the music of their motion to listen.

The cry of the Child had caught the heart strings of creation, even as the reins that hold suns and worlds in their courses led back and were gathered into His clutching, tiny fingers.

The vast, unbroken silences of the unmeasured spaces heard now the first sound they had heard since the voice of the Creator had called them into being. The cry of the Child went through them, redeeming them from what had been their reproach of God’s forgetfulness.

To the outer confines of Heaven the cry now came, and the angels who there guarded the ultimate gates listened in hushed wonder, their own singing of the praises of God turned to a wondering, worshipping silence by the voice of the Child. So now forever those outer angels are listening, in memory of that cry of the Child that once came first to them, for the cry of the children of earth. And never a voice of prayer or pain goes up from a little one among us but is caught up by those angels who wait listening at the very first out-gates of Heaven.

Then through all Heaven went the cry that came, borne on the breath of angels’ wings, up from the Child.

It was the cry of the innocence of little children, and Heaven knew it as the most precious thing that earth had to give. It was the laughter and the frolic of babes, telling of the pure joy of being. It was of the things that babies smile about in their sleep.

It carried the unconscious worship of the little ones, a worship unalloyed. Every little white soul of earth cried up, in the voice of the Child, the gladness of living. Joy of dawn was in the cry, and the glory of the fresh morning. And every springing leaf that took the dew cried in the cry of the Child.

Then Heaven understood. This was Life itself that cried up from earth. For God is Life.

And the voice of the Child carried more than the cries from earth of those whom earth calls children. In that cry were the cries of great men’s hearts, men who, in their strength and in the push and battle of life, had never forgotten to be little ones in heart. These were men on whom the shell of selfishness had never grown. Men who woke laughing to the toil of the long day, who gave with one hand and never thought to take with the other, who loved God beyond reward, who loved men nor ever guessed that men were unworthy; the hearts of these Heaven heard in the voice of the Child. For these are like unto little children, and of such is Heaven.

Now the cry of the Child came on into the nearer courts of Heaven, where the great ones stand in the Light of the Throne. Here were the mighty warriors, and the angels of the council, and those whom God had made great in the practice of His own greatness. And here, among these great ones, was the cry of the Child best heard and best understood. For these, being greatest, were also littlest. And, too, only these knew in the fullest the greatness of the Child which was born on earth. These were they who, in the beginning of all things, had seen Heaven rent in twain at mention of His name. These knew. And falling down they worshipped in the cry of the Child, echoing the Narne that is above every other name.

Again the Angel lay prostrate before the Throne.

And the Light of the Throne beat down upon him. And he spoke not, nor raised himself from the foot of the Throne. But the cry of the Child which he had brought from earth stayed not with him.

The feeble, treble wail of the Babe that was born on earth went on up over the adoring Angel, on up above the steps of Light that were the steps of the Throne, on up, until it came to rest in the ineffable heart of God!

The cycle of the Promise was completed.

The Breath had come down from the Throne; and on the Breath, the Word.

Now the cry of the Child was come back to the Throne.

And the cry was the Breath, of the Word, made flesh.

Now the heart of God was kindled, as it had not warmed or delighted with any of the things made of His hands.

And He forgetteth not ever that it was the cry of a Child that came unto His heart, the echo of His Breath and His Word.

So that the way of the cry of a child, be it in laughing, or in play, in fullness or in hunger, in glee or in pain, is ever open, straight to His heart.

And once in every year, as the earth lives and as long as earth shall live, the cry of a Child goes up to the heart of God. With it go the cries of all the children of earth, for the way is open.

The cry of the innocence of children goes ‘up, and with it goes the word that that innocence is protected and loved and cherished of men on earth. So God is gladdened in His heart, in that He hath made man.

And baby laughter, as meaningless and yet as mysterious as the voices of breeze and wave, goes up to God. And He understands, for the things at which babies laugh are known to Him.

And the shouts of children’s glee go up to Him from homes where love reigns, where the whole world is set at naught for the twining of baby fingers, where mothers work their miracles of love and patience, where strong men rest and find again their strength. These God loves these shouts of romping, happy children. For He knows that those whom these bind together not all the men of earth can put asunder. And upon this He has built His world.

Even the tired sighs of full little stomachs, even these go up to God in Heaven-and these be not despised. For God hath planted the earth with fullness for these.

Others there be, little ones, who shout not aloud in play or do not fall sleepy with full stomachs. And for these God has made Christmas and has put into the hearts of men and women the passion that is the holiest and the godliest one which stirs their breasts, the passion for gladdening the hearts of the forgotten little ones of earth.

And for the cries of little ones so gladdened, God does not wait for them to come up to Him, but listens, leaning down from His Throne, and whispers to the heart of you and me to go search out these; that not one voice of gladness of the children of earth be missing from the cry of the Child that goeth up to the Throne.

Slowly, the angels floated across the sky and disappeared. The shepherds approached each other in the darkness and asked: “What did you see?” “Did you hear as I heard?” “Is it true that the Son of God has come to save the twelve tribes of Israel?” “You are sure that this is not the work of some evil Egyptian magician who would steal our flocks?” They babbled awhile, and one said: “Let us go over to Bethlehem and find out the truth about this thing the Lord has made known to us.”

Always, in times of crisis, the shepherds delegated a few of their number to guard the sheep. This time, in high excitement, they left in a group, confident that, in this moment of ecstasy, God would not permit their sheep to stray. They moved across the dark, grassy valley and up the sides of the hills, climbing and talking and wondering.

The older shepherds were certain that this was not a hoax. All Jews were good scriptural students and, because there were no common books, they memorized all their teachings about God. He had promised a savior, and the great one would come of the House of David. This would be Bethlehem. The aspect which mystified all the shepherds was that the birth of the messiah was undignified.

One could not imagine the Son of God being born in a stable.

It had been said by the elders that when the savior carne to earth, he could be expected on a great white cloud, sitting in august kingliness, listening to the trumpets and songs of hosts of angels surrounding his throne as he ruled over heaven and earth. Tonight, the angels seemed to be an afterthought. It was as though his birth had been so insignificant, so humble, that the angels had to come down to summon a few lonely men to go to the stable and worship him.

A stable? God? Could he not at least have been born in the great palace of Herod the King? Or perhaps in the Holy of Holies of the great temple of Solomon? A manger, the angel said. They understood the word. It meant a sort of trough out of which animals ate grain. It would have the sweet odor of old oats and barley, and the sides would be chewed and chipped. A salt cake would lie in the bottom.

The shepherds reached the top of the eminence and walked among the dozing pilgrims of Bethlehem, asking where the messiah might be found. Most of the men turned away from them in silence. A few asked what messiah; the shepherds asked if anyone had seen the angels. What angels? Some of the wayfarers were rude: they asked the shepherds if they had become mad through too much grape.

Abuse was not unbearable or new to the herders. They had known it before. Patiently, they continued their rounds, asking here and there and finally confining their questions to this: Where can we find a newborn baby in this town? Someone told them to try the inn. The innkeeper, exhausted with his labors, remembered the young man and pregnant young lady going to the cave beneath the inn.

The shepherds approached timidly. They moved down the path in their sandals, whispering. As they approached the lighted aperture, they crouched and coughed. Joseph came out. He studied them solemnly, without rancor, and the leaders told him that they had seen angels in the valley, and one angel had said that a messiah had been born this night in the town of David. They had-well, if it wasn’t too soon-they had come to worship him.

Mary heard, and told Joseph to permit the men to come in. Joseph had some tools in his hand. His spouse told him that the nights would be too cold to permit the infant to travel until after the circumcision. They would have to continue to live in the stable for eight days. Joseph had gone into town and awakened a carpenter and explained the circumstances. Now he had tools and, with the permission of the owner of the inn, he was using sides of stalls to build a small, almost private room for his Mary and baby.

The shepherds came in, the cowls down off their heads.

Their hair was long and ringleted, the beards trembled with murmured prayer, and the hands were clasped piously before their chests. In the flickering yellow light of the oil lamp, they saw the child-mother, seated on straw. She was looking over the side of an old manger. The men lifted themselves a little on their toes to peer over the sides. Inside was an abundance of white swaddling clothes. An aura of light seemed to radiate from it.

Without looking up, the mother knew that they were trying to see her precious baby, so she stuck a finger into the white cloth and pulled it away from the infant’s face. The men looked, with mouths open, and fell to their knees. They adored the baby, and thanked him for coming to save the nation. They recited some of the formal prayers. Joseph, standing aside, was amazed that so many strangers now knew the secret.

The shepherds were tom between wonderment and happiness. This little baby was God and the Son of God, but he was also a helpless, lovable infant. Their hearts welled with joy and the stem; deeply bronzed faces kept melting into big grins, which were quickly erased as the sheep men recalled that they were in the presence of the King of All Kings.

The scene in a chilly manger warmed by the bodies and breathing of the animals, was, to the shepherds, closer to their hearts than if the messiah had come on a big cloud with trumpeting angels. They understood babies, and they understood animals and they murmured with delight that God would see fit to come to earth in an abode only slightly less worthy than their own homes in the hills.

They remained kneeling, clasping and unclasping their hands, and staring at the face of the infant, as though trying to etch on their memories the peaceful scene, the tiny ruddy face, the serenity of the mother, who, by the grace of God, had her baby without pain. They were men of such poverty and humility that their colored thread-bare cloaks spoke more eloquently than their tongues. Their adoration came from full hearts.

If there was any wonderment in Mary’s heart, she did not show it. After a while, the shepherds stood and, in the manner of the Jews, apologized for intruding. They addressed their remarks to Joseph because to speak to Mary would have been immodest. They asked Joseph if he had seen the angels and he said no. They related all that had happened to them in the valley. Joseph shook his head. Mary nodded toward the sleeping baby, as though she and he alone understood that this was only the first of many great world events.

The shepherds left, praising God, and in their joy awakening people to tell them that the promised messiah had come. Everything, they said, had been revealed exactly as the angel in the sky had said it would be. Most of their audience ordered them to go in peace. Thus, if one can say that the place of birth was small, humble, a place of animals and odors, then one can also say that the first apostles were the most humble and scorned of men.

“Joseph.” It was a soft call, but he heard it. At once, he picked up the second jar of water and hurried inside. The two lamps still shed a soft glow over the stable, even though it seemed years since they had been lighted.

The first thing he noticed was his wife. Mary was sitting tailor-fashion with her back against a manger wall. Her face was clean; her hair had been brushed. There were blue hollows under her eyes. She smiled at her husband and nodded. Then she stood.

She beckoned him to come closer. Joseph, mouth agape, followed her to a little manger. It had been cleaned but, where the animals had nipped the edges of the wood, the boards were worn and splintered. In the manger were the broad bolts of white swaddling she had brought on the trip. They were doubled underneath and over the top of the baby.

Mary smiled at her husband as he bent far over to look.

There, among the cloths, he saw the tiny red face of an infant. This, said Joseph to himself, is the one of whom the angel spoke. He dropped to his knees beside the manger. This was the messiah.

Down in the valley, sheep huddled against the chill. The shepherds sat on little eminences, dozing. The herds wandered by day, up and down the grasslands of Judea, always edging closer to Jerusalem, the big market for sheep. Those without blemish brought a good price as sacrificial animals for the temple. The others were sold for shearing and for food.

The people of the town scorned the shepherds. They were wanderers. They had no roots. They seldom married and, when they did, they stripped the soil from the hillsides, exposing the soft white rock beneath. The men carved apartments in these hills, and raised their families remote from the towns.

Some were dozing, a few were watching, when the deep night sky was split with light. It was brighter than day, more like staring at a noon sun, and the sleeping shepherds awakened and, in fear, hid their eyes in the folds of their garments. After a moment, the intense light faded, and an angel appeared in bodily form, standing in air over the valley.

The herders were terrified and their sheep began to run in tight circles. “Do not fear,” the angel said slowly, and the words seemed to echo off both sides of the valley of Bethlehem. Some of the men took heart and looked up. Some did not. “Listen,” the angel said, “I bring you good news of great joy which is in store for the whole nation.”

Good news? This would make any Jew open his eyes and lift them to the skies. They had been afraid of the justice and vengeance of God for centuries. They had worshiped carefully, with respect for all of the nuances of ritual; for fear that God might be displeased and visit unhappiness upon their people. Now-good news?

They looked up hopefully and the angel spoke again.

The voice seemed to permeate the valley. “A savior,” the angel said, “who is the Lord Messiah, was born to you today in David’s town. And this will serve you as a token: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and cradled in a manger.”

The shepherds repeated the words. “A savior… Lord Messiah… David’s town… infant in a manger.” There was nothing frightening in that news. The angel had spoken correctly. It was good news. It was better than good news. It was the long-awaited news. It was the thing which had been promised by God a long time ago. It was the advent of him who would save the people of the world.

The dark brown eyes of the shepherds studied the angel and saw the effulgent light on the sheep and the rocky sides of the hills, and they knew that they were not sleeping. This thing was happening; happening to lonely and despised men in a valley beneath Bethlehem.

They were still dwelling on the wonders of God and his works when the angel was joined by hundreds of others, who appeared brightly in the night sky, and began to sing in a heavenly chorus:

“Glory to God in the heavens above, and on earth peace to men of good will.”

On the eighth day, the infant was taken to the synagogue in Bethlehem for circumcision. Centuries before, God had commanded Abraham, as part of a convenant, to circumcise all male Jews shortly after birth. It pledged all sons of Judea to observance of the law.

Mary wrapped the baby warmly, and handed him to Joseph. The man took him outside the cave and on up the steep path to the inn. This was the baby’s first sight of the world he had come to save and, from his blanket, all he saw was azure-blue sky and sunlight. Up there, somewhere, was the heaven from which he had come and to which he would return only after giving his mortal life in pain.

Joseph passed the inn and went on to the crossroads of Bethlehem. There he saw the synagogue and, after inquiries, took the precious charge inside. He asked the rabbi if he could circumcise the first-born himself. The teacher nodded. Joseph said that he had had no experience with this, and he would need some assistance. The rabbi smiled. He understood. It was common for new fathers to ask to officiate, and it was also common for them to be frightened at the prospect.

The teacher guided the hand of Joseph, and the first few drops of precious blood were shed. So too were the first tears. Symbolically, the young lamb was on the altar. The Son of God was obedient to the law of the Father. The rabbi asked the name to be given the baby and Joseph said Jeshua. This was the name given to Mary by the archangel, It was also given to Joseph in a dream.

The ancient prophet Isaias had predicted that the name of the Son of God would be Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” He also said that the messiah would be called the Prince of Peace, God the Mighty, Wonderful, Counselor and Father of the World to Come. The only name in which all of these meanings are embraced is Jeshua, or Jesus.

The baby was carried back to the tiny stable, with its loose-board room. Jesus was now an infant Jew; a son of the family of David. He would be uncomfortable for several days, but he had suffered the first pain of the man child, and Joseph patted the bottom of the blanket to soothe him.

In Rome, Caesar Augustus learned that many of his subjects were dishonest. He ruled the known world, but the amount of taxes was not commensurate with the number of subjects. He held a council in Rome, and his advisors told Caesar that he could not levy an equitable tax until he had an accurate idea of the populations of the several provinces.

Caesar issued an imperial rescript ordering all subjects, in the winter solstice, to return to the cities of their fathers and there be counted. This, of course, would work hardship on millions of people, and in a two-week period of migration would upset the economic balance as men left their work to travel to distant cities, but it had to be done. The census would be taken in many tongues, and in places along the Rhine River, the Danube, in North Africa, Portugal, Syria, Belgium, Egypt, Palestine and all along the north Mediterranean shore.

Many of the subject people chafed when the law was proclaimed. They said that Caesar was not a just king to do this to them. Even in a small town like Nazareth, which Caesar Augustus would not know by name, the Jews said that it was not fair. Joseph sought the local tax merchant and asked if women in advanced pregnancy could be excused and he was told that no one could be excused. Even the lame and the blind had to report to the cities of their fathers, and many would have to be carried on pallets.

Joseph consoled Mary by telling her that the ancient prophecy, in spite of their wishes, was coming true. She saw the truth of this and her murmurs of discontent died on her lips. Originally, she had protested that a long, rough journey would risk the life of the baby. On second thought, this appeared to be a ridiculous assumption because, if she had been graced by God to bear the messiah, then nothing could happen to the baby.

They started on the trip south, two young and solemn people with a short and slender jackass who bore the most exalted burden ever to honor an animal. Joseph lifted Mary’s spirits by reminding her that, if he paced the trip correctly, and they were not halted by heavy rains or sandstorms, she would see Jerusalem at sundown of the 5th day.

The final few miles were fatiguing. Joseph stumbled many times in the dark and, over his shoulder; he asked his wife if she was quiet. When they were two miles from Bethlehem, she said no. She felt uncomfortable, she said, but it was bearable and she had no complaint. She hoped that they would reach the inn in time.

The stretch of road into Bethlehem curved broadly and climbed steadily. To the left the valley was precipitous. Four hundred feet below, the whistle of shepherds could be heard and sometimes, in the deep silences, the shepherds could be heard exchanging greetings. It was a cool night with a fair breeze coming out of the south. In the darkness, the stars brightened and swelled so that, among the clusters of little blue ones, big ones winked coldly across the centuries of time.

Joseph leaned forward to pull the ass a little faster. He reached the city of David and found, to his dismay, that there were multitudes of people, some sleeping beside the road. He had not realized that there were so many who belonged to the House of David. His heart sank as he found that Bethlehem consisted of one main road running north and south, and two cross streets. The inn was to the left, built on a cliff of rocky soil overlooking the valley. Joseph went directly to the inn, knowing that he would find room there or he would find it nowhere.

He left Mary and the animal outside, and assured his wife that he would make arrangements. She too could see the crowds. Some families were sleeping outside the inn, against the wall. She said nothing. Joseph started to go inside, then stopped and returned.

“Under the law,” he said, “you must have a midwife at once. Let me first find one.”

She shook her head no. The important thing, she said, was privacy. She was not worried about assistance. God had promised to take care of her, and she needed no additional help.

Joseph went inside. The floor of the main room was full of people sleeping in their clothing, with bundles propped under their heads. The odors of the unwashed, and spiced foods, filled the place. The young man sought the proprietor. With supplication on his face, he begged for a small private place for his wife, who was with child. The owner listened and threw up both hands. Where, he asked? Where would you go for privacy? His own family had no room in which to sleep. Every cubit of space had been rented three days ago, and some of the transients were taking turns sleeping in one space.

My wife, said Joseph in a tone this side of begging, is outside. She will have her first-born in an hour or two. Can you not please find room? A little room? The owner became irritable. Every house, every field in Bethlehem was filled with people from all over Judea. Some of the regular caravans between Egypt and the upland country chose to continue their journeys at night rather than remain in this overcrowded place. Where then could a woman have a baby? Nowhere. Some people were even sleeping below in the valley, skirted by bleating sheep looking for grass.

The owner’s wife heard part of the plea. She called her husband aside and asked questions. The night was chill, she said. Look at the men outside the inn, sleeping with their cloaks over their noses. Why could not the young man take his wife to the cave below, the cave where the animals were kept?

The owner shrugged. If Joseph wanted privacy, he said, the only place left was down the side path to the cave where the asses and small animals were kept. The young man was welcome to it, if one wanted to bring a baby into the world in a place like that. Joseph inclined his head. “I am grateful,” he said. “I thank you.”

He dragged his feet returning to Mary. He told her the news. She was not vexatious; in fact, she seemed to be relieved. “Take me,” she said. “The time grows short.”

There were paths leading from both sides of the inn down the side of the cliff. In front, as on the bow of a big ship, there was an entrance to the cave, which had been carved out a long time ago. Joseph paused to light his small lamp, and then led the donkey inside. He turned to look at Mary, and, in the yellow rays, he saw that she was in deep fatigue. The chalk of the road had powdered her face. She removed her veil, shook out her hair, and slid down off the animal. Her bones ached.

Joseph apologized. He said that he was sorry that the Hospice of Chamaan had no room for her, but she could see the crowds of people. He was ashamed that he had failed her in this hour. He must confess that he had not been much of a husband; he hadn’t even found a midwife.

For a moment, Mary studied her husband. She brought a tender smile to her face. She told her husband that he had not failed her; he had been good and tender and lawful. He hung his head and listened. Mary looked around at the haltered cattle, the few lambs, some asses and a camel. If it is the will of God, she said, that His son should be born in a place like this; she would not question the wisdom of it.

At the age of fifteen, she would undergo this trial alone, just as, thirty-four years later; her son would undergo his trial alone. She asked Joseph to build a small fire on the path outside, and to fetch some water from the goatskin. Joseph did as she directed. He found an extra lamp hanging on a stable peg, he lit it and the stable brightened, and the animals watched in glistening-eyed silence, their breaths making small gray plumes in the gloom.

Joseph collected clean straw from the feed boxes, cleaned out a stall, and arranged the straw as a bed and placed his cloak over it. Then he looked for wood outside, and found none. He went back up to the hospice, and bought some charcoal from the owner. When the water was hot, he filled a jar, and brought it to Mary with some cloths. She was standing, hanging onto the wall of the stall with both hands.

Her head was down, and he could not see her face. In fear, he asked her to name what he could do. She said to go outside and tend the fire and heat more water and to remain there until she called him. The animals watched him go, and they watched impassively as Mary sank to the straw.

The fire outside burned brightly in the southerly breeze and little trains of ruddy sparks flew off into the dark night. Joseph sat beside it, heating the water and praying.

No one came down from the inn to ask how the young woman felt. If she prayed, no one heard except the animals, some of whom stopped chewing for a moment to watch; others of whom opened sleepy eyes to see. Time was slow; there was an infinity of silence; a timeless time when the future of mankind hung in empty space.

Joseph had run out of prayers and promises. His face was sick, his eyes listless. He looked up toward the east, and his dark eyes mirrored a strange thing: three stars, coming over the Mountains of Moab, were fused into one tremendously bright one. His eyes caught the glint of bright blue light, almost like a tiny moon, and he wondered about it and was still vaguely troubled by it when he heard a tiny, thin wail, a sound so slender that one had to listen again for it to make sure.

He wanted to rush inside at once. He got to his feet, and he moved no further. She would call him. He would wait. Joseph paced up and down, not realizing that men had done this thing for centuries before he was born, and would continue it for many centuries after he had gone.

The thought was not new to Mary’s mind. How could it have been to a mind that from infancy had been filled with the Law and the traditions of her people and her house? She had read. She had listened. The King was to come. He was to be of the tribe of Juda, and of the house of David. She knew that she was one of those to whom the hope of the people looked. She knew, too, that the great doctors and teachers of the law in Judea, and especially in Jerusalem, would despise any hope that came from outside of Judea. And much more would they look down upon any branch of David’s house that came from outcast Nazareth that sat by the highway in the road markets of the great, defiling world. Maybe she had often been saddened, her deep-hidden maiden hope chilled by this knowledge of what the great and wise ones would surely think of herself and Nazareth.

She knew all these things. The heart of the people had been running high through all these years since she had been listening and thinking. The King might be nigh! Nay, he must be nigh, for the need of the people was very great. They labored. They groaned their need to God. They were crushed under Idumean Herod and his master of Rome. Hearts were breaking under the long long waiting for the fulfillment of the Promise. The King must indeed be nigh. Mary had known all these things.

But Mary was troubled, and a great fear came upon her heart.

What preparation, of reading or of thinking, or even of unwhispered dreams, could really have prepared her mind for the awesome, the overpowering revelation that was now breaking upon it? God had seen to it that her heart and soul were ready, were prepared. But only the years and the keeping of things in her heart could really raise the simple maiden’s mind to a full understanding of all that was now being told her.

And the Angel, seeing her fear, stood near so that the Light which came with him from the Throne fell upon her. And her fear fled away, as she listened to his voice saying:

“Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold thou shalt bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.”

“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High.”

“And He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end.”

Then Mary, taking a wondering courage from the assurance of the Angel, raised her head to look into his face, breathing her timid question:

“How shall this be?”

And the Angel, understanding the bewilderment of her mind, told her of the Spirit that should come upon her, and of the power of the Most High that should overshadow her, so that He that should be born of her should be called the Son of God.

And as though a human lesson, too, were necessary for her understanding, the Angel told her the secret of her kins-woman Elizabeth who was prepared to become the mother of the Herald of Mary’s Son. “For with God nothing shall be impossible.”

Now Mary understood. The last vestige of doubt, of lingering fear that perhaps this vision of the youth at her side might be an illusion, left her. She knew something now of what lay before her. She knew that childhood had been left behind in these last few moments. She knew that her way was now ahead, marked out for her by the God of her fathers.

Again that shadow of sorrow unutterable fell across her heart. She felt in that moment that her way was to be the way of the mothers of earth, in grief and bitter woe. Out of the untutored wisdom of her heart came to her the truth that this unbounded glory and joy which her God had prepared for her could not be hers without suffering alike unbounded.

From where she knelt her way led straight to the foot of a despised cross! In startled, clear-eyed vision, Mary saw!

The Angel waited, for the word which he should carry back to the Throne.

But there was no hesitation, no conflict, and no struggle in Mary’s heart. For this moment God had formed her.

She saw, she understood, she knew her way up a path of fearsome, incomprehensible joy, with the bleeding sword of sorrow at the end. And she answered:

“Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word.”

Then Mary was alone.

Swifter than the flutter of wing, the Angel was gone from the world and was prostrate at the foot of the Throne. And there at the foot of the Throne was delivered Mary’s answer, the most perfect act of worship the glory of the Most High had seen.

The young carpenter gave the baby to a priest, who accepted him with practiced hands, and, as he turned toward the altar, an old man named Simeon peered into the folds protecting the baby’s face, and at once fell back, shielding his eyes. He emitted a cry which attracted attention, and Joseph, concerned for his son, also looked into the folds of the swaddling to make certain that Jesus was all right. Mary clasped her hands and closed her eyes.

The old man was a devout and conscientious Jew who had done many good works in his life. He longed for the promise of redemption by God, and his longing was so poignant that the Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die until he had been permitted to see the messiah.

Because of this, Simeon had attended the presentation of male sons every morning for many years, waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. He had grown old waiting. The daily inspection of infants by Simeon had made him, in the eyes of some priests, a pest. Now, for the first time, he had looked at one more baby’s face and had fallen back as though blinded.

Joseph did not know him, nor the story of the promise.

Before anyone could stop Simeon, he took Jesus from the arms of the priest and, with aged eyes on the morning sky, crooned a hymn to God.

“Now,” he sang, “you may release
your bondsman, 0 Master,
according to your promise,
in Peace!
For my eyes have looked upon the salvation which you have prepared
for all the nations to behold,
a Light to illumine the Gentiles,
a Glory to grace your people Israel.”

The priests and the communicants listened in wonder.

Mary opened her eyes and saw at once that this was another in a long chain of divine manifestations. She looked so kindly into the face of the old man that Simeon handed the baby back to the priest, and turned to Mary with tears in his eyes.

“Alas!” he said to her. “This babe is destined to be the downfall no less than the restoration of many in Israel!

His very name will provoke contradiction, and your own soul, also, shall be pierced by a sword!

And thus the secret thoughts of many a heart shall be laid bare.”

This was the first that Mary knew that, in her selection as the mother of God; there would be sorrow and tragedy. If, as seems likely, she thought that her enormous honor would carry with it nothing but the pleasant task of bringing the infant up in righteousness to do the will of the Father, she was mistaken. She was beginning to learn that the work of the messiah was a study in contrasts.

He was God, but he had chosen to be born in the humblest abode. Still, his advent had been heralded by angels from Heaven. His mother was a poor, unknown virgin and his foster father was a poverty-stricken carpenter, but rich wise men had come, unannounced, out of the east to adore the baby. Now, in the holiest place in all Israel, an old man had stepped forth to state, without blasphemy, that this child was the salvation of the world. ‘Who told him? She wondered. How did the old man know? And what did he mean by saying that her soul would be pierced by a sword?

She was meditating on these things when a commotion arose and out of the crowd came the oldest-looking woman Mary had ever seen. Her face was a skeleton over which saffron skin was stretched. The woman dragged her legs forward, toward the infant, and no one tried to stop her. The priests acknowledged her presence by bowing curtly. This was Anna, the prophetess. She was the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Aser, and she was known as one of the holiest of women.

Anna had married young and, for seven years, had been happy. Her husband had been taken from her suddenly, and she had turned to God and the great temple. She was there every morning; she was there every evening. She had been a widow for eighty-four years and, counting the seven years of marriage, and the ritualistic age of fifteen before marriage, the prophetess was probably one hundred and six years of age.

When she had dragged her ancient frame to the side of Jesus, she peered at him, and turned away, thanking God over and over. From that day on, she went among the women at the temple, preaching about Jesus to all who hoped for the redemption of Israel.

Order was restored in the temple, and the baby was presented to the Lord. He was found to be without blemish. Joseph redeemed him with money and with a sacrificial offering of the doves. The sun was hardly at its zenith when Joseph led his spouse and the baby back to where the jackass was tethered.

Joseph took another look at the baby, to see if he could see anything unusual-any radiance, perhaps-which might have moved the old man and the old lady in the temple. What he saw was a round face, dark ringleted hair, clear olive skin, and red lips pouting a little in sleep.

He saw a baby.

Very early, with the coming of day, Mary had risen to go about her work. The sun coming up over Mount Tabor saw her sitting spinning in the soft, white light of the morning. There was so much to be done. There were not hours enough in the day for the doing of all the things that crowded. The days were so full; the world was so full of hurrying, pressing things.

Those years in the temple, she remembered, had never been like this. There all had been bathed in a wondering, adoring calm such as, it must be, surrounded the Seraphim in Heaven. There had been no worrying hurry; no pressing of moment upon moment: only the whole long days of all the year in which to grow and bless God and live to him.

Here was a bewildering and terrifying world, even in little, forgotten Nazareth. Men said strange things, terrible things, and some men blamed and some men praised. And all men fell to wrangling over the things that were said. At the cross-roads, in the fields, by the village well, in the night watches while the sheep stirred restlessly on the hills, men fought.

There was no peace. Men quarreled and disputed of God and the Law. And knew not that they knew neither God nor the Law. Strange stirrings, strange words, uneasy breathings went working through the land.

It was spring in the land, on the high hills, in the deep valleys. The pulse of spring ran under all. The ancient heart of mother earth could almost be heard, beating in a new, strange, expectant rhythm.

On the face of the earth, in the early morning, before the sun came up over Tabor, there was a hushed wonderment, a waiting, un-breathing moment of expectancy. It was as though earth and heaven stood, all eyes, awaiting the opening of some great drama of God. Mary saw it, felt it, and understood. Just so her own soul stood this morning, in the dawning, waiting, eager, trembling.

She understood more. Just so she knew all true souls in Israel were waiting, eager, hopeful. It might be here, it might be there; in palace or in sheepcote. But surely the Lord was coming!

Three thousand years had been telling of it. Abraham had seen it. David had sung it. Prophet and priest had told of it. The heart of the people had felt it. This morning earth and heaven looked for it. And Mary’s heart waited!

The time was here at hand. Men said it. Earth knew it. And Mary’s heart waited!

Her soul quivered with a premonition, as she stopped the twirling yarn at the hour of the Morning Prayer. For, swift as was the coming of the Angel, it was not possible that news such as he brought could come to earth without sending before it a warning, hushing whisper. The whisper came to Mary as she knelt within, where the sunlight coming in at the single window fell upon her head. And Mary’s heart was ready, waiting!

Wondering, bewildered, as always when she said these words to herself, Mary was repeating that chapter from Isaias in which the real nature of the Redemption of the Promise is set forth. Few people thought of that chapter; for what connection could it have with, what could it have to do with the glorious King who was to come to Israel’s throne?

Surely, she repeated slowly, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet did we esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Her head drooped down upon her hands. Over her heart there fell a shadow. What could those words mean, if the King to come was to be as men said and hoped? What could His coming be, what his life, when the great prophet had thus foreseen Him?

The shadow was the shadow of sorrow all unreckoned: of a grief like to which there is no other grief.

She lifted her head and the Angel stood at her side. “Hail, Full of Grace!” The Salutation came to her in the way of words, yet not in the way of words from tongue to ear. They were words from the Throne to the humblest daughter of earth. They told that the Throne had remembered the Woman. But Mary did not understand the words. As though they touched not her ears at all, they passed direct into her soul and held it captive. For years they held her soul captive!

“The Lord is with thee!” These were not words!

They were the Word! The Word that was come to abide. with her!

And Mary did not understand the words. Only the outer sound of them fell upon her ears, as the sound of so many other feeble, uncounted words might so have fallen.

But the Word, which had come on the breath of the words, from the Throne, passed on into Mary’s heart, and lived!

“Blessed art thou among women!”

Now Mary’s soul trembled on the verge of revelation, of understanding. These words could mean but one thing.

Who could be called “blessed among women”?

What Jewish maiden could be called” blessed”? Only one.

Only that daughter of Israel who was chosen to be the mother of the Savior of the race-only she could be called “blessed among women”!

It could mean only one thing, the thing for which every daughter of the house of David had been looking these many years!

Joseph said that it would not be wise to return to Nazareth and then come back for the visitation to the temple. It would be better to remain in Bethlehem and, on the morning of the forty-first day, to take the child to Jerusalem, obey the law, and return to the cave and pack up preparatory to leaving for the long trip home the next day.

Altogether, the carpenter would be away from his business for many weeks. This, for a young man who had recently concluded his apprenticeship, was a long time. He must return to his work. In a craft as precarious as his, it was important to remain in good favor with the townsmen and a man could not do that if he was not available for work.

Mary agreed. She was a tractable, obedient wife, a girl whose hours were taken up with her baby. The baths, the feedings, the changes, sitting with him in the early sunlight on the side of the hills, rocking him to sleep and crooning to him in the late hours all tended to confuse the young mother between her son’s divinity and his human aspects. He was a baby-her baby-but he was also God, and the daily ministrations to his normal needs moved her mother’s heart to dwell upon him as an infant who needed maternal care and love.

But, when the baby slept, and she and Joseph had time to discuss, in whispers, the wondrous things which had happened, and which would come in the future, they were beset by anxiety and they did not know what was expected of them. Joseph seemed at times to have a deeper appreciation of the destiny of the youngster. Mary, on the other hand, had an appreciation of each of the wonders of the birth of the messiah, but seemed unable to group them into one big mural.

It was better this way because, had the Father permitted her to see the enormity of the whole plan, she would have been overwhelmed in the presence of Jesus and could not have discharged the duties of a good mother in the normal intercourse of raising a child. Another factor was that the Son of God had come to earth to be born, to “grow in wisdom and in favor with God and men,” to engage in a public ministry to show the true and only way to heaven, and to die in self-willed pain for all men. These things would not have been truly of earth if Jesus had not elected to be as human as his neighbors.

Neither Mary nor Joseph ever lost sight of the real mission of Jesus, nor of his divinity. They knew. In the years ahead there would be many strange and awesome things to remind them, again and again, that the human aspect was condescension of God to man, whom he created and loved. The divine side would be hidden for more than thirty years and, when it was revealed publicly, it would be done at a marriage feast, and solely to please his mother. The sorrows were still far away.

The first forty-one days were sentimental ones for Mary and Joseph. They were happy ones spent in the humblest surroundings. When the census taking was over, they could have moved up to the inn because there was room, but it would have been an added expense, and Joseph’s carpentry in the stable had turned out so well that the young couple felt relaxed and at home among the domestic animals.

At dawn on the forty-first day, Joseph saddled the little jackass, and packed enough food and water for one day’s travel. It would be five miles up to Jerusalem and five back. Then, after a good night’s rest, they would pack everything, pay the innkeeper, and start the five-day trip to Nazareth.

Jerusalem and its great temple were like a giant hive to the Judean bees who appeared in long dusty lines along the inbound roads in the morning and who, after the last evening sacrifice, left in long slow queues, like thousands of dark insects who, after spawning, leave at a common time without communicating with each other.

In the northbound group, Joseph led the little animal and, on it, Mary and Jesus. He saw the backs of animals and people ahead of him, and he accepted the alkali dust on his lips and the gritty taste between his teeth as a concomitant of travel. The Jews they met were not friendly because it was not considered seemly to exchange greetings. In ordinary conversation, well-educated people averted eyes because it was felt to be immodest to stare into another person’s eyes.

Joseph passed the big field of the potter to the south of Jerusalem, walked up the Valley of the Kidron to the north side, and entered the Sheep Gate. He tethered the ass, and took Mary to the Gate of the Women and gave her some coins. Joseph took the baby in his arms and the mother smiled at the awkwardly tender manner in which he held Jesus, and she adjusted the folds of the swaddling clothes so that the sun would not hit the baby’s eyes.

The foster father first walked out into the courtyard and bought two turtledoves for sixteen cents. This was called the offering of the poor. A proper offering would have been a lamb, but the price of unblemished lambs on the temple grounds was seventy-five cents. In a land where the average family income probably did not exceed fifty dollars, Joseph could not afford anything but the most modest sacrifice.

The mother stood timidly in the area reserved for the women of Israel. She saw many other women, of all ages, worshiping. Then she heard the high, thin wail of the organ, which announced that incense was to be kindled on the Golden Altar. This summoned all women who had recently given birth to infants, and who had come to the temple to be purified.

Ahead of Mary were huge trumpets standing on end, their wide mouths standing like golden lilies against the marble of the house of God. She recalled Joseph’s instructions and into one of these she dropped her offering for the sacrifice. She walked up the fifteen steps to the Nicanor Gate. There were other young women with her. On the far side of the gate was the Court of Israelite Men, and females were not allowed there.

The station men of the temple met the young women and assisted in the sacrifices, the burnt offerings, the sin offerings, the drink offerings, and as the incense floated up into the blue morning sky the hymn of praise, TrisHagion, filled the cold corridors. Afterward, Mary was levitically clean, pure of stain, and could participate in sacred offerings. She rejoined Joseph and Jesus.

Joseph took the baby into the sacrificial section of the temple. The presentation ceremony was, in effect, a buying back of a son. The first-born, under Jewish law, was reserved for God. He must be free of such bodily blemishes as would bar him from the priesthood and, on his thirty-first day or after, the father must first offer the male son to God, and then redeem him from a priest. The cost was high-about $2.50.

The Magi waited until the star came up, east of Jerusalem, and then, when it again neared the zenith in the night sky, they mounted their camels, and followed it the final few miles. They started on the north side of Jerusalem, where there was a bazaar for gentiles, and passed the Gate of Damascus and went across the swift-flowing Kidron to a little place called Gethsemani, then south toward the Valley of Himrnon and on up the winding road near the field of the potter and straight south to Bethlehem.

The star seemed to move before them, as stars do when people travel, but when they came to Bethlehem the blue-white gem appeared to be directly overhead. They asked the few pilgrims who still remained after the Roman census if a king had been born in the area. The pilgrims said that they had heard no such news. The wise men tried several places, but the replies to their questions were vague and guarded.

The Magi looked like rich gentiles, which they were, and the people were disinclined to consort with them, even in conversation. It was Gaspar who said that the question should be rephrased. Instead of asking if a king was born, let us ask if a baby has been born.

They tried this tack with no success until they stopped at the inn for refreshment. They were told that an unknown couple from the north had had a baby. No one knew anything about the family. The newborn could be found below, in the stable. The three wise men looked at each other, and wondered. A stable? A king in a stable?

They went outside and again checked the prophecies of the ancient Jews and the portent of the star. The signs, they were forced to conclude, were correct. Balthasar pointed out that there was much evidence that the One God acts in ways mysterious to man, and that there must be a reason-a reason which escaped them-for having the All Highest born of unknown people in a stall for animals. Gaspar agreed but he spoke for all when he said that, even though the reason appeared to be unfathomable, they had inquired around the town and only one baby had been born and this one must be the one promised by God to the Jews.

Melchior nodded solemnly and the three men pitched a tent outside the inn and removed their traveling garments and changed into raiment befitting their station in life. This was a happy moment for the sophisticated Persians. They had, as a matter of course, been on intimate terms with kings who had sought their counsel. This would be the first majesty who would be an infant and, at the same time, the Anointed of God.

From the saddle pouches, they withdrew their gifts, adorned themselves with the jewelry of their rank, and, in solemn file, walked down the path to the stable. At the entrance to the stony grotto, they were met by Joseph. Gaspar introduced himself and his confreres, and told Joseph that they had come a long way to adore the new king.

The foster father excused himself, and went inside to consult with Mary. In a moment, he was back, asking them to enter, apologizing for the humbleness of his quarters. The Magi did not hear him. They were looking beyond Joseph to Mary, who sat crouched on straw with the infant in her arms. She glanced up briefly, and then reverted to what she had been doing: touching downward at the baby’s chin to make him smile.

The three wise men threw themselves onto the grain sanded floor, the folds of their brocaded garments spilling into the chaff. They touched their foreheads to the floor, and announced that they had come to pay homage to the new king. Mary glanced at them tenderly, and held her baby so that they could see his face.

Mary smiled. And the little one smiled. The wise men remained grave. They studied the infant’s face as though they were trying to etch it in their memories. Their knees remained on the floor throughout the visit, and when Gaspar felt that it was time to go he nodded to Melchior, who made a formal address about bringing gifts suitable to one who would be referred to as the All Highest.

He reached behind, and brought forth a small ornate casket. As it was opened, Mary turned to look. Joseph stood in the archway watching. The baby dozed. Melchior opened the casket and announced the gifts of the Magi as they were laid out upon a white cloth. There was a small packet of gold dust. Then a jar of frankincense, a fragrant essence of resins and oils from East Africa, and myrrh, a rare orange-colored gum used as a perfume unguent.

Joseph was abashed. He was a young man from a provincial town, but he realized that these gifts were reserved as a tribute to sovereigns. He tried to express his gratitude, but the words died on the roof of his mouth. Mary smiled and thanked the visitors, and hoped that God would guide them home in safety.

The Magi backed to the door of the stable and left.

They decided to spend the night in Bethlehem, and to leave in the morning. Before their little camp they set a fire and sat talking about the visit and the portent to the world represented by the newborn. Balthasar said that he could detect radiance, an aura of light, around the messiah. Melchior said that he too had noticed. Gaspar was looking at the night sky. What, he asked, happened to that big blue star?

In the night, the Magi were warned not to return to King Herod with the news of finding the messiah. They were not told why. In the morning, the three philosophers agreed that, although it would be wrong to ignore the invitation of Herod to return to Jerusalem, it would be worse to ignore the warning of an angel in a dream. So they packed their tents and utensils, mounted their camels and, instead of returning north to Jerusalem, headed east through Marsaba then north to Jericho and across the Jordan into Peraea.

There was a time of quiet; a time of family communion; a time to think. There were two ceremonies to be undergone before they could go home to Nazareth the presentation of the first-born at the temple in Jerusalem, and the purification of the mother. The first, under the law, could take place any time after the thirty-first day of a male child. The second could not occur before the forty-first day.

Bethlehem lay sleeping in oblivion of the most tremendous happening that the world had known. Sleepy unbelief and scorn met the sheep-herds, as they went from door to door, crying their quest:

Where was He that was born, Christ the Lord?

Young men answered lazily that all sheep-herds were fools. Old men cackled sharply at them, berating them. They were told to go back to their flocks. Who was keeping the sheep upon the hills, that they who were paid to watch might thus disturb the night rest of their employers? Let them go back to their sheep. Perhaps the sheep were even now being stolen. Who knew but these faithless ones were in collusion with the robbers and had run away to leave the sheep at their mercy?

They had seen a vision? Had heard angels?

They had slept and dreamt, like the worthless fools they were, while the sheep fell over precipices! Let them go back and count the sheep.

The Christ! Christs were being born everywhere in these days. Did not every young woman that saw a star, or dreamed twice in succession, proclaim her son to be Shiloh!

Let them go back to the sheep. If any were missing they would pay well for it.

Thus did Bethlehem-blessed with a miracle that would make men forever love her name-receive the news of her calling.

The sheep-herds were but men, ridiculed and scoffed by other men who must be wiser than they. They ceased to cry aloud and exult in the glory of their tidings. Brave men ride smiling into the grip of death. Good men are gentle and true in the face of adversity and treachery. Wise men are silent under criticism and blame. But not good men, nor wise men, nor brave men, can glory in the face of laughter and chaff.

These men did not doubt. They were not shaken.

They had seen the glory of God and their ears had heard the voice of His Angel. They had been given a sign. Their quest was sure. But they went silently now, following the sign. They had not been wise to ask of the rich ones or the great. Their sign had pointed them plainly to a stable. Probably it was the back part of some poor man’s house that had been meant.

Perhaps among the strangers, who had come to live with relations in the city for the days of the numbering, the child was born. Yes, it would be among the poor. For the poor have always many relatives and many children are born to them.

So they went silently through the ragged, choked parts of the little city, looking for a manger in which a new born child was laid. But there seemed to be none such, for all the people slept and there was no vigil in any house, as would be in the house of their search.

Had they passed the place, in darkness? Surely not.

The Christ would not be hidden from them. They had a sign. But they had gone through all the village now and there was no child.

Hold! One saw a light. It was a light which their eyes knew. It was of the same light in which they had seen the Angel of the Lord. Out of the very hillside it seemed to come.

First they ran, then walked slowly, then held back urging each the other forward. Now their quest was sure, for this was beyond doubt the light of the Heavenly vision, but their knees trembled and their feet were timid on the hillside; for fear was upon them so that they hardly dared move, one before the other.

It was the house of a poor man whose kinsman had come from afar to remain during the days of the counting. And because the house was already full this kinsman was abiding in the stable. The matter was very plain. Just so all Bethlehem was housing its poor relations during these crowded days.

Fearfully, their tongues stilled, their souls awed, the men came into the half circle of light on the open side of the stable.

They saw a young Mother, in whose eyes the light of God shone through tears turned to joy, resting upon a pallet of straw.

They saw a man, with the stoop of toil in his shoulders, leaning over the manger.

They saw in the manger, the Child.

The Light revealed it to them. The Angel at their side whispered it in their ear. As they knelt adoring their own lips said it-It is Christ the Lord.

The King had begun the founding of his Kingdom in the hearts of the lowly of earth.

A wave of exultation filled the heart of Mary. The young girl no longer wondered and worried about her part in God’s will. She became lyrical and she stood before her aunt, arms outstretched, eyes dimmed and half-closed with tears of joy, and she uttered words which remained engraved on the heart of Elizabeth for all days:

“My soul extols the Lord;

And my spirit leaps for joy in God my savior. How graciously He looked upon this lowly maid! Oh, behold, from this hour onward age after age will call me blessed!

How sublime is what He has done for me the Mighty One, whose name is ‘Holy.’

From age to age He visits those who worship Him in reverence.

His arm achieves the mastery:

He routes the haughty and proud of heart; He puts down princes from their thrones, and exalts the lowly;

He fills the hungry with blessings, and sends away the rich with empty hands. He has taken by the hand His servant Israel, and mercifully kept His faith-as He had promised our fathers with Abraham and his posterity forever and evermore.”

The women embraced and Mary wondered what made her think of those words. The young girl remained with Elizabeth until June, a week prior to the birth of John. Mary was three months pregnant and her parents had sent word that she should be at home preparing for her wedding. Yes, the wedding. Elizabeth now enjoyed Mary’s complete confidence and the two wondered if Joseph knew. It was important that he know what was about to happen, and to understand.

When Mary arrived home, she saw her husband-to-be.

He was not happy that she had chosen to be away from him for three months and, if he knew the secret, he hid it well. He had heard from Mary’s mother that Elizabeth was to bear a child, but surely there were others in her town who could have attended her. The young girl did not dispute Joseph. She decided, from his attitude, that he knew nothing of the great secret. She would not marry: him without telling something of it.

“I’m going to have a baby,” she said. The shock to Joseph was beyond measure. Throughout the courtship, his intended bride had worn an aura of innocence; he was painfully conscious of her lack of knowledge. She had gone away three months ago, and now she returned to say that she was pregnant.

It is impossible to read the depths of sorrow in both hearts. He looked at her tenderly and she offered no word of explanation. She looked away from him and wished that she might tell everything. The baby was going to need a foster father-who better than the man she loved, the gentle and pious and patient Joseph? The thought crossed her mind that he had been selected for the role for these very reasons. He would be an ideal guardian for the infant. Then why, why had he not been told? Why wrench two young hearts with tragedy when the truth was as bright as the sun and as warming?

On the tip of her tongue Mary had the greatest secret of all history. She could not unlock her tongue. Joseph went away from her to think. Of the two, he was the more pitiable. He loved this girl with all his heart and he had had visions of a long and fruitful life with her. Now, he felt, she had betrayed him and he could not understand the betrayal, nor even force himself to believe that it was true.

Joseph kept his awful secret. He could divorce her publicly. If he did this, he would be impelled to tell the elders the reason. In that case, they would ask Mary if she was with child. If she said yes, Joseph would have to swear that he was “without knowledge of her.” The priests would adjudge her to be an adulteress. There was only one penalty for this crime: stoning. The guilty person is led by townsmen to a high cliff and ordered to jump. If the adulteress refuses, she is pushed. As she lies at the bottom of the cliff, the people arm themselves with stones, and watch. If she moves, they throw the stones. If she doesn’t, they go home. The body is left where it is for the birds and the animals.

Joseph was being put to a test. He did not want Mary to die. He loved her. He could, under the law, pay money to put her away, to have her sent to some remote place. There, she could have her baby and remain. A third possibility would be for Joseph to swallow his pride, proceed with the wedding, and hope that there would not be too much comment in the town over a six-month baby.

He was dwelling upon the possibilities one night in bed.

Suddenly, the carpenter made up his mind. He would put Mary away privately. It would break his heart, and he knew that he could not love anyone else, but it would be just and, at the same time, merciful.

Within a few moments after the decision was reached, relaxation came to Joseph, and he slept. In sleep, he was visited by an angel. The spirit said to him “Joseph, son of David, do not scruple to take Mary, your wife, into your home. Her conception was wrought by the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus; for he will save his people from their sins.”

When Joseph awakened, he remembered the dream and he wondered if his forlorn hopes were reaching for rationalization. A dream was nothing more than a dream. His unconscious wishes might be fulfilled in sleep. Still, if this were so, he would never dream a blasphemy in which the pregnancy was excused by attributing it to God. Besides, the dream fulfilled an old prophecy to the letter:

“Behold, the virgin will be pregnant and give birth to a son, who will be called ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God with us.’ ”

Joseph felt refreshed. He felt happy. The more he dwelt upon the dream, the more clearly he saw the hand of God revealing a great truth to him. It required restraint to go to work, making stalls and tables and wooden hangers for utensils and closets for garments. He longed to hurry to Mary’s house, yelling: “I know! I know!” His patience manifested itself, and he waited until the proper time, after supper, and when she saw his first glance, Mary knew that he knew before he took her for an evening walk to explain.

God had tried both of these young people, and they had not failed him. Still, Joseph was worried because he did not understand what part he was to play, nor how best to interpret the will of God. The scripture plainly said that the messiah would be born of a virgin, and Joseph interpreted this to mean that he would have no prerogatives as a husband, now or ever. The following week, they were married and Joseph took Mary to his home. One of his worries, he confided to Mary, was that if the old prophecy of a messiah was to be fulfilled, then something was wrong because everyone knew that the sacred scriptures said that the King of Kings would be born in Bethlehem-the City of David. Their infant would be born in Nazareth, a little place over ninety miles north of Bethlehem.

She had no intention of traveling anywhere, Mary said.

She was going to remain here in Nazareth. In the summer months, and the early autumn, the older women of the town noticed that she was pregnant, and they counseled her to remain close to her home. She would not go to see Elizabeth’s baby, so why would she consider traveling to Bethlehem? Joseph nodded. That was the way he felt. He had never been to Bethlehem and he had no intention of going there.

The high priest reported to the palace of King Herod and relayed the news. The sovereign was insane. He was a dark, bearded man with wild, rolling eyes and he had been dying of a wasting disease for a year. Herod listened to the news on a couch and ordered the high priest to summon the Magi. He asked their interpretation of the meaning of the big star, and they told him that it should be a joy and comfort to a king so ill to know that, in all probability, God had sent a savior to take his place.

Herod offered some grapes and figs and asked many questions. He appeared to have an academic interest in the new king-if there was a new king-and he hoped that if the Persian philosophers found the baby, they would do him the courtesy of informing him, so that the king could offer his own tribute to the new majesty. By the way, he said, if the star first appeared when the baby was born we should be able to tell the age of the new king by knowing how long the star has been in the sky.

Melchior shook his head. We saw the star recently, he said, but it was possible that it had been in the sky-perhaps on another path-for many months. We would doubt this, but it was possible.

The three wise men exchanged gifts with Herod and left. At once, the mad king called in the council of the nation-the high priests and the scribes-and he demanded that they interpret the symbolism of the new star, and do something about it at once. He assured them that if, for example, the star was over Bethlehem and some unknown infant was there, the stupid people of the streets would spread the news all over Judea and would desert the temple and, worst of all, their lawful king, in favor of a squalling, whimpering infant.

Some of the high priests favored sending spies to follow the Magi, but Herod was opposed to this. No, he said, I have asked them as a courtesy to return to me with whatever news they may have. I will deal with that situation later. At the moment, I expect you to show some gratitude to the person who rebuilt your temple-me. Spread the news among the faithful that, when the messiah comes, he will come fully grown, on a cloud, attended by legions of trumpeting angels, and he will come directly to the earthly home of his Father-the temple.

No one smiled, but some of the priests must have been tempted.

They were acquainted with Herod’s record. He was the cruelest of all kings and, in their opinion, the furthest removed from God and his works. The people had not chosen him as their king. Thirty-five years ago, a Roman emperor had appointed Herod the Great and, for three years, the people of Israel were in rebellion.

Now he had to contend with an unknown baby. After thirty-five years of sovereignty, Herod was dying slowly and dyspeptically, and he could not even undergo that with serenity. A baby intruded. Well, he would await the return of the Magi, and he would deal with the baby in a manner Herod considered to be direct.

Unto them good tidings of great joy were brought! Not to the embattled castles of the strong of the earth; not to the busy gathering places of many men; not to halls of learning nor to the cloisters of the wise came the good tidings. Rather it fell like the rain upon the wind-swept, parched hills.

Into the clods of earth the breath of the good tidings was breathed. It opened the ears of dumb beasts to the voice of the eternal Shepherd. It fell, like the ripening sun, upon the hearts of men, bursting the burrs of earth that had held them and bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit of God. Never more could those men return to be the dumb, insensate men who followed dumb, insensate sheep. Their ears had heard the words that ring, from Eden to the Valley of Judgment, the Promise of Life!

Which shall be to all the people.

These few stuttering men upon the hills could not contain the good tidings. The hills and the mountains were not wide enough for it. The rocks would burst into speech of it. To every heart in all the lands in every time was the message.

The posting relays of Rome carried the word of a man by the Tiber to the ends of the earth with all the speed that flesh and blood could endure. The shrieking wind bore news swiftly from land to land, by the sea in ships. The ages would find other and yet other means to encircle the earth with news. But these good tidings to all the people should outstrip them all. This message leaping from heart to heart of all the world would draw the hearts of men together until it had welded them all into the one great heart of earth, beating to the measure of this good tidings.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior. With their senses still bathed in the supernal vision, their minds still a blank to all but the glow of light about them, their newly awakened souls leap to the word of the Promise. In the hearts of these men now, hearts which till now had been but lumps, surges up the longing of Israel for the coming of the Lord. Into their eyes comes the straining, expectant look of all the holy ones of God’s chosen. Father and priest and prophet and all the patient little ones of the long, long waiting come peering now through the eyes of these few. The souls of Adam and of Abel, the souls of Abraham and of David rose into the souls of these and exulted in God.

And the soul of the whole waiting world, the soul of those who fainted and were weary in hope deferred, took heart of life and believed in that hour forever. And the soul of the world unborn, looking timidly forward out of chaos, understood that the world before it was a world of light and hope.

Which is Christ the Lord.

Not any savior was this that was born this day. Not a king, nor any prince of the house of David who would lighten the burdens of Israel: not a leader this, who should fulfill the plans and hopes of aspiring men: this was Christ, the Lord God!

Their souls understood the saying. Their hearts leaped to it. But their senses could not comprehend, for this was a thing to which the senses did not reach.

Then the Angel of the Lord, seeing the bondage of their senses, took pity upon them; for their minds must have a sign.

And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

Thus was bridged the gulf between the sight of God which was to their hearts and the senses of men which ever wait feebly and lamely upon a sign. A sign was given them by which their senses might come to the God lying in His manger. Thus could they find Him.

And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will!

The triumphant chorus of Heaven breaks through the circle of the senses. Ears and eyes to which a sign has been given are miraculously attuned and focused to the soundless, invisible wonder. The dead earth springs to quick, pulsing life and is set vibrating to the music of Heaven.

Then the swelling, exulting diapason, to which all Heaven and earth rang, rolled on toward Bethlehem.

The darkness fell back upon the hills. The dumb beasts went on in the beaten ways of their instincts. Men stood peering dazedly into a redoubled blackness.

But those hills would never again be the same hills that had lain an hour before in their sere and unrelieved bleakness. That wonderful anthem of glory to God and joy to men-the only music of Heaven that ever was heard on earth-consecrated and shed a halo upon those hills forever. So long as the race of man inhabits the earth the hills of Bethlehem shall ring to the music of angel voices. With its last breath the world will sing that song of those hills.

Nor would those men be ever again the same. Through the curtain, they had seen the unspeakable glory of God. Their ears had listened to the very tones of Heaven, praising the Most High. Never would they be again as other men, moved by the common things and thoughts of life. Their souls had lived a moment in Heaven. Never would that vision leave their eyes. Never would sound or sight of earth be able to thrill their hearts or put wonder in them, for they had passed through the supreme, the illuminating experience. Neither death nor eternity, itself, would have a greater thing to show them.

Now that the choir of angels was gone from them, the sheep-herds found tongue. Each man was sure that he had seen and heard, but he was doubtful that such a thing could have happened to his neighbor. The straying sheep were forgotten while men ran together, comparing, questioning, piling wonder on wonder to each other.

But a sign had been given! When the veil of darkness had fallen before their eyes and the curtain of silence had again cut them off from the presence of Heaven, the sign remained with them.

In Bethlehem the Lord was born, this night! By the sign they would find Him-wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger!

They must hurry over to Bethlehem. These great tidings would not wait. They must be the first to adore the Christ.

Running, now striving to outstrip each other, now crowding timidly together, for fear was still upon them, they raced down from the hills and across the little plain to the slope where Bethlehem lay.

But they seemed to have forgotten the sign. They did not run looking for stables, where mangers would be. Human nature had come back upon them. Instead of following the sign, they ran knocking at the gates of the rich and the great ones. The habit of their servility told them to look among these; surely He must be born among these.

There he sat in the dark in his shop, which was a shed that leaned against his house. There, with his hands touching the wood and the rough tools of his daily toil, he was at home to face this thing out with himself.

For some reason Mary feared him. That much was plain. Evidently she had gone away to the hill country of Judea to avoid him. And now, even though she had voluntarily returned, she could not at all bear the sight of him or endure his company. Something had happened which had made him suddenly distasteful to her, or there was some hidden, terrible reason why she feared him.

He cast about futilely in his mind for any word or action of his which might have frightened the maiden, for she was not as other young women of her age. But, somehow, he seemed to know that this thought was idle.

The trouble, whatever it was, was a thing that went deeper than any chance or ill-considered word of his could have gone.

Suddenly, a mist swam before his eyes, and his hands gripped desperately at the friendly familiar things about him to keep his hold upon himself. The world stopped in its course and staggered, while his senses reeled from the searing pain that shot through his heart.

Mary was lost to him!

It smote him with a shock of agony that seemed to wrench his very soul from its moorings. It shot through his mind like a shaft of burning light, leaving him dazed and numb with a paralysis of all thought.

Mary was not for him!

He did not argue, he did not struggle with the thought.

It leaped upon him and bore him to the earth.

He had no complaint, no blame. It was all a part of the futility, the failure, the emptiness of his whole life. He, the son of kings, the son of David, had ever stood by and seen the prize of life snatched from him, even as he would have put out his hand to it. Failure, humiliation, bread turned to stone; these had been the law of his life and the wages of his toil all the days from his youth up. Was it indeed his punishment, for that he had let the royal blood of David lie stagnant in his veins, for that he had not risen up, as that David would have done, to strike a blow for his right, for the people, for God?

Then his heart went back on the way of self torture to the pictures it had made of Mary. He saw the sainted girl standing in his doorway, a blessing before all men. He saw a thrice-blessed woman guiding his household in gravity and love and the grace of godliness.

And his soul cried out in unvoiced agony. And his heart, in its torture, wrung itself dry of blood, so that he swooned and fell upon the ground, a broken thing.

The light which awoke him was not the dawn. It was the radiance which the Angel brought from the Throne.

“Joseph, son of David,” he heard a voice, as he lifted his arm to his eyes to shield them from the light,” fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”

Then the light was gone from the shed. And Joseph reached out his hand to the teeth of the saw, and they were sharp and tore his fingers. And he put his hand upon his hewing axe, and it was heavy to lift. These things were real. He had not dreamt a dream. And the light stayed in his heart.

So, early in the morning, he sought the rabbi Amon and brought him with him to the house where Mary dwelt.

Mary, seeing them approach, was frightened with a terrible fear; for Joseph must surely be coming, thus with witnesses, to put her from him with the dread “bill of divorcement.” But as they came nearer her eyes were quick to see the light in the face of Joseph. And she knew that God had listened to the cry of her heart as she had prayed in the night, and had revealed His truth to him.

So she came forward and stood before him. While he, looking upon her in great and tender reverence, said:

“Mary, God hath had pity on my blindness.”

And, blessing God in the wonder and adoration of their hearts, they went to their home.

Gabriel’s voice softened. “Do not tremble, Mary,” he said. “You have found favor in the eyes of God. Behold: you are to be a mother and to bear a son, and to call him Jesus. He will be great: ‘Son of the Most High’ will be his title, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David. He will be king over the house of Jacob forever, and to his kingship there will be no end.”

The words did not calm Mary. Vaguely, she understood that she was to be the mother of a king of kings, but who might this be and how could it occur when she was not even married?

“How will this be,” she said shyly, “since I remain a virgin?”

It was Gabriel’s turn to become specific. He stood in soft radiance in the room and explained. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. For this reason the child to be born will be acclaimed ‘Holy’ and ‘Son of God.’” She now understood the words, but they added to her bewilderment. What the angel was saying, she reasoned, was something for which the Jews had been waiting for centuries: a messiah, a savior, God comes to earth as he had promised long ago. Mary shook her head.

Not to her. Not to her.

Gabriel sensed that the child needed more proof. “Note, moreover,” he said, “your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son and is now in her sixth month-she who was called ‘The barren.’ Nothing indeed is impossible for God.”

Her eyes lowered to the earthen floor, and her head inclined too. She comprehended. She also understood that the angel had told her about her old cousin Elizabeth, whom she had not seen in some time, so that the fruitfulness of her kinswoman would be the earthly seal of proof to the heavenly words. She, a young virgin, was to be blessed by the Holy Spirit and she would bear a male child who would be God. It was an enormous honor, but she had been taught to accept and obey the will of God from the first moments of early understanding.

“Regard me as the humble servant of the Lord,” she murmured. “May all that you have said be fulfilled in me.”

The angel stood before her in silence, fading slowly from her vision, bit by bit, until all that was visible was the wall. Mary’s impulse was to run and find her mother. She must tell. She must ask counsel. She must convince her mother that she was not inventing a story. Exultation came and it was transmuted to anguish. It was not a dream. Or was it? Could one dream, standing wide awake in one’s house?

No, it was not a dream. She knew that it could not be, because she could not have devised the words that Gabriel used. Now, for a moment, she had trouble remembering them. She wrung her hands and prayed for recollection. Full recollection. She had to know every word and, more important, to understand every word. She prayed and thought and prayed and, little by little, the words and phrases returned until, like a familiar litany, she could recite them without hesitation.

She thought again of her mother and decided not to tell. If the angel had wanted her mother to know, he would have come when her mother was at home, so that both of them would have had knowledge of this thing. He had deliberately selected a time when she was alone. Therefore, it must be the will of God that she keep the secret. Anyway, if her mother or anyone else knew the secret, they would tell it to her, and thus she would know which human beings God had selected to know of the honor.

Surely, she thought, Joseph would know. He was her intended husband. The angel would have to tell Joseph. If he didn’t, then what would Joseph think when she became great with child and he knew that the baby was not his? Oh yes, the angel would surely tell Joseph.

Within a few days, Mary asked, as casually as possible, for permission to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Her mother thought of it as a touching sign of devotion, and sent her off with a family traveling south to Judea. The young virgin said nothing about her secret. Some of the time she seemed to her friends to be lost in a frowning reverie.

Elizabeth was gray and wrinkled, and she had spent many years in the balcony of the synagogue asking God for a child. Her husband, Zachary, was a priest, a small town teacher who had once been selected by the great priests of Jerusalem to be the one to enter the holy place and offer the incense. He felt sorrier for his Elizabeth than he did for himself in the matter of childlessness. He understood the natural maternal feelings of Elizabeth and, unknown to her, he had prayed again and again for a child.

Sometime before the visit of Mary, the angel Gabriel had appeared before the old lady and told her that God had answered her prayers. She would give birth to a son in June, and she must call him John. Someday in the distant future he would be called the Baptist, and he would go ahead of the messiah, preaching and baptizing as he went. The angel told Elizabeth more. Much more.

Elizabeth was standing in her doorway as Mary came up the walk. It was as though she had expected the visit. Mary, an affectionate child, shouted a happy greeting before she reached the door. Elizabeth felt her baby move within her and, in raising her hand in greeting, suddenly burst into tears. “Blessed are you,” she said, “beyond all women. And blessed is the fruit of your womb I” Mary stopped, part way to the door. Her mouth hung open. She could not speak. Elizabeth knew 1 Elizabeth knew the secret 1 Elizabeth wiped her eyes and tried to smile. “How privileged am I,” she said to her niece, “to have the mother of my Lord come to visit me. Hear me now: as the sound of your greeting fell upon my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy! Happy is she who believed that what was told her on behalf of the Lord would be fulfilled.”

The last sentence was a quasi-warning for the young girl to erase all doubt from her mind, and become reconciled to the greatest duty of all ages. Mary had not doubted. She had believed the words, but she could not convince herself that she was the one, of all women on earth, selected to bear the Baby. Now she was convinced. She no longer tried to divorce her person from the prophecy. She had told no one of the secret, and here Aunt Elizabeth not only knew about it, but was pregnant exactly as the angel had said she would be.

Toward dawn, the big star was pale in the western sky and they turned their slow plodding camels toward it. They moved across the sands of the desert, with the rising sun behind them, and they pitched their tents by day, and mounted again when the evening sky turned deep blue and the big star came up again, a brazen gem winking along the rim of sky and earth.

If the portent was correct, and this star foretold the king of the Jews, then it was important to the Magi to see the king, to pay homage, and to bring gifts. The trip occupied several days. They came through the passes of Moab into Jericho, where the Dead Sea and the River Jordan meet, and they crossed the river and went on up into Jerusalem.

On the last night, they seemed to be almost under the big star. At its zenith, it seemed to be almost overhead.

In the early evening, the three august personages went to Solomon’s temple and stood, as was required, in the outer Court of the Gentiles. They addressed one of the seven thousand Levitical priests, and asked: “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? It was his star we saw in the East, and we came to offer homage to him.”

The Magi appeared to be happy and expectant, but the Levitical priest did not share their joy. He summoned a ranking member of the Sanhedrin, and the Magi explained the new star and their interpretation of the happy sign. The high priest asked questions, frowned, and said that he knew nothing of such a sign. However, as a mark of respect to the rich visitors, he detailed the beliefs of the Jews about the messiah, some of which sounded, to gentile ears, contradictory.

One of the prophecies was:

Behold! The virgin will be pregnant and give birth to a Son,

Who will be called Emmanuel which means, God with us.

There were others, the high priest said, one of which mentioned the town of David:

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, Are not the least of Judea’s principalities; For out of you shall come forth a Ruler, Who will shepherd my people Israel.

This, said the wise men, would appear to be the most promising clue because, as they approached Jerusalem, the star was close overhead. Bethlehem, five miles south of the holy city, would be a good place to go. They thanked the high priest, and camped outside the walls for the night. It was decided that, if the new king was not in Bethlehem, the wise men would make a few more inquiries, and then turn homeward.

The high priest was vexed. He knew that the people of Judea set great store by the portents of the stars, and he did not want the ridiculous assumptions of the gentiles to become common knowledge. Suppose there was a baby in Bethlehem? If the Magi found him, and adored him, the people would hear of it and this might turn them away from the great temple of Jerusalem.

He waited until the early watch and stood in the tower over the gold grapes on the east wall of the temple, squinting into the night sky. It appeared that there was no star, and the priest felt relieved. He was about to descend when a bright light appeared to hang between the jagged peaks of Moab. He studied it a moment, waited, and then expelled a long sigh. It was a star. An unusually large star.

On the same night, a bright star appeared in the eastern sky. It came up majestically over the rim of the world and could be plainly seen through the trees of a forest, in the mirror of a quiet lake, a blue pearl over a tawny desert, a gem of hope far at sea. It was seen by many, and marked by few. The star came up blue-white, in the orderly orbit of the heavens, and it seemed so large that it shed blue shafts of radiance.

Three of the men who studied it were Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. They were rich Persians. In the southeast, they regarded the new star in the east and stroked their beards. These were wise men, scholars who were referred to as the Magi and who were known in Persia as philosophers, scientists, astrologists and followers of Zoroastrianism, a creed which fought the worship of graven idols and believed that there was but one God for all men.

The Magi were excited about the star. It had two phases of interest for them. One was the physical-where did this star come from and why had it not appeared in the night sky before? The other was the symbolic: what message was the star trying to convey? The three wise men pondered these things and could come to no agreement on the first premise.

One argued that it was not really a star, but a rare conjunction of two or more stars. This could not be so, a second said, because if it were, their paths, having converged, would soon part and they would be seen as separate stars. A third said that the star was really an unknown comet, appearing brilliantly in the eastern sky, and doomed quickly to pass from view.

Whether it was several stars, or planets, in conjunction, or whether it was a fiery body without a visible tail, the star had special meaning. They were sure of this. They consulted some of the old astrological predictions, and found nothing that would fit the situation. They tried some of the old Greek and Persian tracts, but found nothing which might apply.

It wasn’t until they went over the ancient Jewish scriptures that the wise men saw the true meaning of the big star. There was an old prophecy by Balaam which said:

“I shall see him, but not now. I shall behold him, but not near. A star shall rise out of Jacob and a scepter shall spring up from Israel.”

The star then would mean that a savior of the Jews had been born. Melchior agreed that, if the star could not be explained in any natural manner, this interpretation was important-to the Jews. Oh no, said Balthasar, more than the Jews because Balaam, the prophet who uttered the words near the end of the forty years’ wandering, was not a Jew. He was a gentile. In fact, the words, according to scripture, had been said in the Mountains of Moab, on the edge of Persia-outside of Israel,

If so, said Gaspar, then the fact that the star had been seen by Persians, and properly interpreted by them, would have exciting meaning for the entire world. It was possible that the messiah had come to save not only the Jews, but the Medes, the Assyrians, the Romans, the Babylonians, the savages farther to the east.

At once, the three wise men left their tents, determined to follow the star. They packed food and water, and the special trappings of rich philosophers, and started out on camels to find the place of the King of Kings. None of them expected to reach a destination in one night and there was some disagreement among them about whether the star would appear again on the following night, so that its path could be traced.

In the entire world there were no hills bleaker than that limestone ridge that formed the backbone of Judea. And of that entire ridge the sheep pastures were most bare. The desert itself was not more barren than these upland stretches, nibbled to the roots by the sheep in their hunger.

It was the time of the dying year, the sun just starting on his northward course. The out-cropping rock showed stark and white in patches larger than the spots of meager soil. Death might have claimed the country for his own, and might have proven the claim by the desolation of the land.

There was no life here. Not even the promise of life.

Men dragged out the lengthening chain of their days and nights at the heels of sheep. And the sheep merely protracted the process of dying.

Misery, naked as the hills, trudged soddenly about a business which, for want of a fit name, was called life.

The following of other men’s sheep is the most desolate and benumbing task to which men have ever been set.

Distance and poetry have put for us a nebulous veil of romance about the business of the sheep-herd, and called it beautiful. Reality makes it the most unprofitable, the most wearisome, the most stultifying labor of man. It requires no intelligence; only an instinct a little higher than the dog’s. Of the two animals who follow sheep the dog is the better trained, therefore more valuable. And, in the end, the business is thankless-the world knows that the hireling flies.

A moonless night, cold and black, lay like a shroud upon the hills. Not a light, not a sign of life, not a cry disturbed the curtain of gloom that veiled the country, from Bethlehem to Jebel Fureidis where the tyrant Herod had built his stronghold and his tomb. Only here and there a miserable, half-dad sheep-herd drifted hazily through the dark behind the straying sheep, a phantom man following phantom sheep through what might be an eternity of dark despair. And scrawny dogs ran weariedly, with no joy in the work, snapping listlessly at the noses of their stupid charges.

Other gaunt men lay sleeping, dreaming hungrily of food and warmth, waiting their turn of the watch, to arise and stumble hopelessly through another endless round of toil.

To awaken and beautify and gladden this grim, lifeless countryside needed the coming of God in His glory.

And what could ever strike the light of life and vision and of the spirit in these sodden, drifting figures of men?

They had souls, to be sure. Men do not even walk in life without souls. But their eyes were of use only to follow the vagaries of sheep. Their ears were tuned only to the yelping of dogs. They walked only as they were led by sheep. Heat, cold, hunger and thirst were the limits of their perceptions. Beyond these limits their experiences and their sensations did not go. Certainly they were not the medium to which God might entrust an overwhelming, world -astounding revelation.

But — Lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of God shone round about them; and they were sore afraid.

They felt the quivering flutter of a million wings upon the air. The earth trembled beneath them as though a giant hand had brushed it from its spinning course. The light that suddenly smote and drowned their eyes was the Light that came down from the Throne. The grave clothes of stupor and weariness and ignorance were suddenly stripped from their spirits, and their souls came forth to see the wonder of God.

They saw the tower “called Eder” ablaze in a glory of light, so that it seemed that the lightning had there found its home. They saw the dun, bare slopes and the jagged rocks spread with a golden carpet of light so that these became the hills of Heaven. They saw the whole air about them and the heavens above suffused with the glad, warm glow of an eternal dawn.

The winged glory of Heaven brushed across the face of the sodden, dumb earth, and gave it a living soul!

And looking up to the heavens they saw the pole of the heavens stand still, and saw the birds of the air stop in their flight.

And looking upon the earth they saw the rambling sheep stopped in their tracks, with their heads lifted up from their feeding. And they saw a sheep-herd’s stick lifted up to strike the sheep, but arm and stick remained fixed aloft and did not strike. For all things in that moment were turned from their courses.

Looking farther, they saw a dish of food prepared upon the earth, and men seated about the dish reaching their hands into the food. And they who reached did not withdraw their hands from the dish. And the hands that carried food to mouths did not do so, but stopped arrested in their way. And they saw a spring and goats about the spring, thirsty to drink. But they did not drink. And they saw dogs with their mouths opened to bay the sheep, and their heads raised to give cry. But the cry did not come forth it for was held in their throats.

Awe and a great fear held the men entranced as they stood. They would have thrown themselves prone upon the ground to hide their faces from the fear, but they could not do so for their powers were reft from them. Only their souls were alive in the Light.

Then the Angel of the Lord stood near them, saying:

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all the people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

Once the decision had come to Joseph, that Mary must travel up with him to Bethlehem, many things that had been perplexing and worrying him were suddenly made straight.

None in Nazareth, save only Mary and himself, knew of the coming of the Angel to Mary. The time was fast coming when the revelation would have to be told. And he knew how the gentle Mary shrank from the comment and the disbelief which she could foresee. In her first bewilderment and timidity she had fled away and hidden herself those three months. And though he knew that she was content in his knowledge and his protection, he was sure that the problem of the future of her Son was pressing heavily upon her.

Many times he had thought of leaving Nazareth and taking her to some distant village. He had even spoken of the plan to Mary. But always she had demurred. It seemed that she .was not willing that the coming of her King should even seem to be in any way affected by the ignorant thought of the world. In all of her own humility and lowliness of mind, she. was fiercely, adoringly proud for Him. And she had steadfastly insisted that they should wait upon the word of the Lord, until He should indicate to them that which He wished.

Now the coming of the command of Caesar, through Herod, had opened a way to him, which he believed was no less than a part of the design of God. And Mary, too, when he had talked with her, was ready to agree that a way was pointed out.

So Joseph sold the furnishings of his household and the heavier tools and the bench and frames of his trade, for he had a presentiment that he should not soon return to Nazareth. His trade was one that he could practice in almost any place, and he was not as those who are bound to the land. From the sale he had money with which to buy an ass, and support for the journey.

Now they could fare forth, to follow the will of God, with some provision for the wants of the way, and with a reason for their going that was patent to all men.

Thus, Joseph leading and Mary riding upon the little beast, with the finer tools of Joseph’s trade and the bags of food and clothing slung on either side, they took the road which Mary had taken in troubled flight in the days of the Spring.

It was a journey altogether different from that which Mary had made, for now the cold was come and it was necessary to seek fire and shelter for the night. Also, the road now was crowded with travelers; for the command of Herod had set all Israel upon the move. From one end of the country to the other men were journeying, singly and by families and groups, each up or down to his own city. And the excitement of the road was intense, for many, many of the young men had taken to the hills to join themselves into bands and live upon the travelers of the road.

Out of the protection and comparative security which she now enjoyed, Mary wondered how she had ever found courage for that lone and terrifying journey which she had made.

On a morning early they came in through the north gate of the holy city and made their way up to the temple, for Joseph was minded that the Lord was their protection and their guidance.

There was tumult in all the streets of the city, for the crowd of those who had come up to be enrolled was very great. And men talked strange tongues, and stranger thoughts, in all the byways of the streets. And as they came up the hill towards the temple the crowds were denser and their talk more wild, so that Mary was frightened and ready to beg that they should go upon their way. But Joseph went on, looking neither to the right nor to the left, nor speaking to any man.

On the very steps of the temple the tumult was terrible.

Men swore strange, wild oaths here, even in the gates of God. And priests of the temple harangued madly, calling curses upon Herod and upon his master in Rome, that they were daring to invade the rights of the temple.

In the Court of the Heathen, where they went together, the sights and sounds that met them were of a nature to sadden the hearts of these two faithful ones. Their lives were lived far from the temple where the noises and the bickerings and the desecration that went on within it were scarcely even imagined by them. To them, the very name of the temple must have brought the thought of the calm of God. They could think of it only as the dwelling place of the heart of the Lord, where peace and purity and the vision ineffable were over all.

That was the temple of their God, as their souls pictured it in their distant dreams.

This was the reality which fell upon their hearts. Because of the multitudes that were in the city, the stalls of the money changers had been thrown open and they plied their thieving trade across their tables even as in the days preceding the Passover.

The booths of the sellers of doves and pigeons to the women crowded half the floor of the great court. Signs directing the crowds to the right or the left were posted everywhere as in the busiest and most bewildering marts of the world. Filth and the hot, crowding presence of many men made the air of the place insufferable.

Officers of the temple stood at special stalls to receive the money from the people and to give them in return leaden checks with which alone purchases of offerings could be made. Thus the poor were put under a double imposition. Coming up from far-flung districts of the country where their only coins were the coins of the Greek and eastern merchants who visited them, they had first to deal with the money changers to get the lawful money of the temple. And this they must exchange for the checks of the officers of the temple who were in secret league with the purveyors of the articles for the offerings.

And above all there rose the high, angry clamor that ever accompanies every sort of traffic in the East; the angry cry of disappointed greed; the shrill wail of the miser forced to pay a price; the forlorn cry of the poor finding their all too little.

Joseph dealt with the money changers and coming gave Mary her portion, that she might not be shamed to enter the temple without her free gift to the temple treasure.

Then they went to their separate courts to pray before the Lord.

Meeting again in the outer court, the peace of God was upon them both. But they were not minded to linger. The scenes of this outer court of the temple and the noise of passion that filled the streets made them hunger for the open road and the solitude of communion in the Mystery that was with them.

And now there fell upon them both, on the slow road, in the winter sunshine, a vision and a sight that was of God. And they were no longer Mary and Joseph, two simple, wearied people of outcast Nazareth. For the light that shone upon them was the light of God’s unfolding Mystery. And they were two whom God had chosen out of all the creatures of His hand to be nearest to Him.

They were the spirit and the soul of Israel, of Abraham and of David. They were the soul of all those who walked with clean heart in the Law. And they were the spirit of all those unnumbered millions who would walk in a new and higher Law in all the world and in all the times of the world.

Upon Mary the light of the vision fell and she saw not the darkness of the days that had gone, nor felt the fatigue nor the shadow of anguish. But looked even upon the throne of the King, her Son, and was melted in the glory of her vision. And in that hour her soul went to all the women of earth who bear a man child so that for one flooding hour of glory they see, every one, their man child a king.

And upon Joseph the edge of the vision fell, so that in that hour he was not a weary man plodding a dusty road. He was a mighty, glorious protecting angel of strength and light and beauty, and his heart fell down and worshipped in the tenderness of mighty strength.

So, in the evening, they climbed the hill road to the well where David in the long ago had so thirsted to drink. And the gate of David’s blessed city, Bethlehem, the little, stood open to them.

Mary was born and raised in Nazareth, the child of an average family. She played on the streets, as the other children did, and she was subject to parental discipline. Joseph knew her, even though he was four years older. All houses in Nazareth were in the same neighborhood because it was a small town. The biggest event that could occur in Nazareth was for a father to take his children to the nearby Greek city of Sepphoris to shop in the bazaars. The people were knit closely in their daily lives, and the women met in the morning at the village well.

When Mary reached her thirteenth birthday, it was permissible to ask for her in marriage. The proper form was followed. Joseph first asked his parents if he could marry Mary. He was seventeen, an apprentice carpenter in the neighborhood and more than a year away from having his own shop. It was assumed that a serious-minded young Jew of seventeen was a responsible adult.

Joseph’s parents discussed the matter of marriage and, in time, paid a formal call on Mary’s parents. The entire neighborhood knew in advance what negotiations were at hand, and, from draped doorway to draped doorway, the women discussed it as they washed the stones in front of their houses. Mary was not supposed to know of the matter, but had ex facto knowledge of it all along and had made known her wishes to her mother and father. Joseph, who thought it was a deep, pending secret, was amazed and embarrassed to find that the boss carpenter and the tradesmen were not only aware of his wishes, but looked at him archly, stroked their beards, and made him the butt of unsmiling jests.

The parents engaged in their formal discussion. It was necessary, as part of the little ceremonial, to talk of a dowry, but Mary’s people had none. Their economic status was no better, no worse, than Joseph’s: as long as the man of the house remained in good health, they would not starve.

When the two mothers and two fathers were agreed, the qiddushin took place. This is a formal betrothal, and much more binding than any other. The qiddushin has the finality of marriage. Once the marriage contract was negotiated, even though the marriage ceremony had not occurred, the bridegroom-to-be could not be rid of his betrothed except through divorce. The qiddushin, in Judea, also entitled the couple to lawful sexual relations, even though each of the parties was still living at home with his parents. However, in the country of Galilee and in the south, the people had renounced the privilege more than five hundred years before, and purity was maintained through the final marriage vows.

Still, if Joseph had died between qiddushin and marriage, Mary would have been his legal widow. If, in the same period, another man had had knowledge of her, Mary would have been punished as an adulteress. The waiting time was spent, according to custom, in shopping for a small home and furniture. The nissu’in, or wedding ceremony, would be almost anticlimactic. A big part of the ceremony was the solemn welcome of the bridegroom to his bride at the door of his new home.

Throughout the engagement, Mary, of course, lived with her parents and accepted the daily chores set out for her. At a time midway between engagement and formal marriage, Mary was alone one day and was visited by the angel Gabriel. She was alarmed, to be sure, but not as frightened as she would have been had she not heard stories of such visits from the elders. Mary lived after the days of the great prophets, the great visions, the visitations.

Gabriel stood before her and saw a dark, modest child of fourteen. “Rejoice, child of grace,” he said. “The Lord is your helper. You are blessed beyond all women.” Mary did not like the sound of the last sentence. Her hands began to shake. Why should she, a little country girl, be blessed beyond all women? Did it mean that she was about to die? Was she being taken, perhaps, to a far-off place, never again to see her mother and her father and-and Joseph?

She said nothing. She tried to look away, not only because of terror but because it was considered bad manners in Judea for one to stare directly into the eyes of another, but her eyes was magnetized. She stared, and lowered her eyes, and stared again.

Joseph, the worker in wood, wrought dizzily through the heavy heat of the June day, working by the side of a fire which he had built to heat water so that he might soak the wood and bend it upon the spokes for the felly of the wheel. It was back-breaking work, and the dry heat entered into his bones so that his head swam and his arms refused their strength. But so he had toiled all the years of his life, a man hewing to the line, severe upon himself, ever giving more than the measure for which he was paid. It was no new thing that he should labor to the point of utter weariness. Hard, unstinted toil had been his uncomplained portion all the days of his life.

This man was the son of kings and a king, of right. The havoc of time had robbed him of his birthright and of all the things that should have come with his blood-of all things save an honored name and the great, brave spirit of David his father. The irony of life which gave him the blood and the spirit of a king and with these in his heart forced him to hew other men’s wood for the barest needs of living had ever cut deep into his heart. In his youth he had rebelled and chafed in spirit that the blood of David should be thus demeaned on the earth. And there had not been wanting foolish men who harried the soul of the young man with talk and with unspoken jibes.

But these things had never been able to embitter the sturdy heart of the man who walked straight with God. Nor was it poverty, or labor, or the consciousness of the injustice of the world that now weakened his spirit and robbed his frame of its strength. There was a deeper trouble that touched the very fiber of his being and made his heart to bleed inwardly, in silence.

Mary, the light of his eyes, the maiden whom he loved with a tenderness passing the love of all other men, had been gone from the village these three months now. She had gone secretly, without even a word for him. She was his promised wife, and it was his right to have known whither she went, and why. But there was no blame in his heart for her, as though she had thought but lightly of him. Her guardians could only tell him that she had gone to her kin in Judea. They could give him no more reason than he himself could conjecture.

He knew that Mary had done nothing in ungentleness; the reason for her going must have been one that compelled without question. Something beyond endurance must have troubled the maiden to drive her to this secret flight. He had been minded to follow, to protect her if there were need, and to bring her back. But he had not ventured to do so, though it would have been his right. There was that about Mary which he had never understood, something in her of which he stood always in tender awe.

His heart was wearied and troubled sick as he bent his back to his task. But now, as he lifted his eyes a little, his soul leaped up into them; for there was Mary climbing the hill from the great roadway. He could not be mistaken; there was none other like to her in the entire world!

He would have rushed down to greet her as she came opposite his place, but something, in the look she gave him or in the wearied hesitation of her walk, told him that she did not wish to talk and kept him standing hurt and silent by his wheel. So Mary passed by to her house.

In the evening he would seek her out and she would tell him of this thing which had troubled her.

He found her sitting in the gloaming by her house and softly spoke her name, saying:

“Mary, Mary, how is it with thee? And how was it I should not know this thing that troubled thee?”

But the girl, rising in panic, looked up at him with startled, frightened eyes. Then she burst into tears and fled away from him into the house.

Now Joseph was dumbfounded and more sorely troubled than ever. He thought to follow her into the house, to get an understanding of the unusual conduct; for he was sure that only some deep and terrible fear could have made Mary deal thus with him. But he did not follow. He turned and went sadly back across the ridge of the village to his own house.

Someone is asking, “If Christmas is always, as you say, then why do we set aside December 25-just one day in the year-to celebrate it?” Well, there’s a lot of tradition in that, too. We might answer that question by asking, “Why do we stop work one day a week-on Sunday-instead of on Thursday or Friday?” The answer is that God gives us that one day in the week to rest, to think about what happened last week, and what will happen next week, to renew our strength through prayer and meditation so that we can face whatever comes. We can rest on other days, too, of course, but having a special day set aside for this seems to impress upon us our need for refreshment, and for the remembrance that we need to stop and “take stock of ourselves.”

The same thing can be said of December 25: it is the yearly reminder that our Lord loved us enough to become one of us, to sacrifice Himself for us so that we might understand once and for all that God is, and always was, and always will be; that God is Love, and that love will win, even on a cross.

Love is the greatest power there is, and love is the meaning of Christmas. This is why we need a day set aside for remembering the “earth birth” of our Lord, who was Love clothed in human flesh. Christmas is the day set aside for us to ask ourselves whether we honestly love God and man. We need this day of spiritual inventory to clean out the old worthless stock of indifference and to restock our hearts and minds with the spirit of the Christ, to receive Him and give ourselves.

Christmas, my child, is love in action… When you love someone, you give to them, as God gives to us. The greatest gift He ever gave was the Person of His Son, sent to us in human form so that we might know what God the Father is really like! Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas!

So let’s put our love into action this Christmas. How?

Wouldn’t it be nice to visit Christ this Christmas by visiting those imprisoned by sin or sickness?

Wouldn’t it be more Christ like for us to visit someone in need of food or clothes, instead of exchanging a lot of gifts and gadgets which have little use?

Somewhere on the plains of Kansas there is a humble little doctor who spreads the Christmas spirit in a chain reaction. As Christmas day comes closer and closer, the doctor writes every patient who owes him anything, canceling the bill as a sort of Christmas present! But … there is one little condition: the patient must contribute a similar amount to a worthy charity. The doctor writes the patient: “Send us their receipt and we will close your account.” It is a four-way gift: from the doctor, to the patient, to the charity-and on to the unknown man or woman who benefits by it all! Why not try that this Christmas? Why not try a little actual forgiving of our debtors, instead of just mumbling it over in the Lord’s Prayer?

Instead of worrying about what we should or should not pay for a gift for a friend, how about a donation for an orphanage in his name? You could send him a card saying that he has shared in some Christian Christmas giving with you.

How about offering Christ your talent this Christmas, instead of some of your money? He wants the best you have to give, not the cheapest! Do you know the story of “Why the Chimes Rang”? It deals with a set of church chimes that rang only when someone offered a gift that came from the heart, at Christmas. The rich gave their gold -no, gave some of their gold-but the chimes were silent. The not-so-rich gave “what they thought they could afford” -and the chimes did not ring. Finally there came a lame boy who had no money at all; he laid his crutches on the altar-and the chimes rang! I’ve always had an idea that that boy walked out of the church with a new strength, leaving the crutches behind.

Sacrificial giving to God always rings the bell.

How about giving up a grudge or a grievance or an imagined hurt this Christmas, to get a little peace in your heart? “Peace on earth, good will toward men!” That heavenly announcement is printed on many of our Christmas cards. Do you know, my child, that many years before the Savior was born, a prophet named Isaiah foretold the birth of Jesus and said that He would be known as the Prince of Peace? Later, this Prince of Peace told us that peacemakers are blessed-or happy. What He meant was that unless you have peace you can never be happy. Another time, He said that if we have anything against our brother, we should be reconciled (or make peace) with him before we offer a gift to God in His place of worship.

In Czechoslovakia, I am told, the people celebrate Christmas by visiting their friends and foes and forgiving any misunderstandings which might have arisen during the year; Christmas to them means the ending of old quarrels and the beginning of the new year among new friends. God must love that! He never gives us His peace until we have drowned every hate and grudge and bitterness in the great sea of His love and mercy. Only when we are at peace with others do we have Christmas in our hearts.

Or, you can gather up some of the things you don’t use any more, get them to one of those organizations that mend and restore them and send them out to folks who are in need. Remember the joy each item brought you: wish the same joy to the one who receives it from you and you will find out how blessed it is to give with such a wish. For wishes, like thoughts, are things; this way, you will be sending two things-a wish and a useful gift.

While we are at it, how about a real sacrifice this Christmas? Like choosing one of your most prized possessions, and sending it out to someone to express your love? God gave us not “something He could afford” He gave His most precious possession in heaven, His own Son!

We need to see His Son beyond the gilt and gadgets of Christmas, need to see Him in the manger, in the streets, on the cross. Hilda W. Smith put it beautifully once:

The Carpenter of Galilee Comes down the street again, in every land, in every age, He still is building men.

On Christmas Eve we hear Him knock; He goes from door to door:

“Are any workmen out of work? The Carpenter needs more.”

Christmas is like that: like the walking of Jesus, like the moving of the Spirit from the days when time began to our own times, like the redemptive purpose of God working out its way in our lives through the One born at Bethlehem…

Yes, my child Christmas is always, for Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always…” and Christmas is Jesus!

God decided to make the arrival of His Son startlingly different from what the world expected. So, the night of His Son’s birth, He sent a heavenly host of angels to announce the birth to humble shepherds on a hillside in Judea. What a present for them!

The world expected the Christ to arrive in a scene of dazzling splendor, like a king from heaven. But no-God planned it otherwise. He made the scene of the nativity radiant with the simplicity of a lowly manger, with Joseph, the husband of Mary, and the shepherds, and the beasts of burden in the stalls round about. Instead of princely robes of velvet and satin, our Lord was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and He lay in a bed of straw.

You can still see the spot where He was born, in a little rock-lined room cut into the hillside of Bethlehem. Thousands make their pilgrimage there every year, to stand in awestruck silence for a moment-for the greatest moment of their lives. No one ever laughs there; many weep. To no other being ever to live upon our earth is such homage paid, after 1900 years. As we go in to see the manger-spot, we pass through a little door cut so low that we must bow to get through it. No man, woman or child approaches this holy spot without a bow.

No matter which day in the week you go there, it is Christmas. Christmas is always, in Bethlehem…

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways…” saith the Lord. Our Savior’s coming had been predicted by the prophets’ centuries before, and even the kings of the Orient, far from Bethlehem, were eagerly watching for a sign of His arrival. They were so vigilant in their watchful waiting that they recognized immediately the bright new star in the East and started down the long, long road that led to Bethlehem, to see this long-awaited Messiah. Imagine their surprise when they found Him in a stable!

But perhaps it made no difference, for in the pictures we have of them standing at the manger; we see no surprise on their faces. They stand there in their rich, royal robes, or they kneel there offering their finest gifts of treasure. One offers gold; hereafter, gold is good enough only to be thrown before the feet of Jesus Christ! Another offered frankincense-sweet-smelling incense often burned at the altars of the temple; frankincense, as well as gold is useless now; it was not holy ritual but holy living that this Christ demanded. One offered myrrh; this Babe would die young, on a cross, and Mary, happy now, would need myrrh for the embalming.

These were the first Christmas gifts from human hands to God. Study them well: they have deep meaning.

Even then, God was saying to the wise and the mighty: “Except ye … become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” What did God mean by giving us this Babe, by this lowly birth? Was He not giving Him as a Christmas present to the poor, and as a rebuke to those who put their trust in riches?

As He grew to manhood, Christmas was everywhere that Jesus went. He gave lovingly to friend and foe alike. He gave of His divine nature to heal the sick, to raise the dead. He changed water into wine at a wedding feast, fed thousands on a hillside with a few loaves and fishes, made the blind to see, forgave guilty, miserable men and women and transformed them into new, victorious people by His matchless words ….

Imagine the joy of Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, brokenhearted at the death of his twelve-year-old daughter, when Jesus took the dead child by the hand and lifted her up into life again! What a Christmas for that family!

Think of what must have gone through the hearts of Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus walked out of that tomb after four days! That was really Christmas, for, you see, Christmas is giving and Jesus really gave of His divine strength to revive those loved ones from the sleep of death.

He has been doing it ever since: millions have been lifted out of the sleep of unhappy, purposeless lives into abundant life by the gift of faith in this Christ. . . . On whatever day they accepted this gift from Him, that day is Christmas to them forever.

How much Christmas He gave! Remember the time when the mothers all crowded around Him with their little ones, and how He put His strong, tender hands on each of them in blessing and how His followers complained of His taking so much time for the little ones when there were so many weighty matters to be discussed, so many other more important things to be done? What did He answer? “Suffer little children … to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” He was saying that Christmas is for the young in heart, and that only those with the simplicity of a child’s heart can appreciate Christmas and His gifts. Those who become so wise in their own eyes that they think they need not Christ-these have lost the wonder, the true magic, the glory of Christmas.

Now the man and the woman were told by God that they could eat and enjoy the fruits of any tree in the lovely Garden of Eden, except one. God knew why it would be bad for them to eat the fruit of that one tree. But the man and the woman were not as wise as God, so they disobeyed Him. When they disobeyed they were not happy and God was not happy. You all know what happened after that…

The years went on, and God peopled the earth with more men and women-but they were not happy, either, because the first man and woman had brought sin, or evil, into the world, with their disobedience.

But God still loved them; He has never stopped loving us, no matter how evil we have become. From time to time, He would send certain men to earth who were filled with His Spirit, to try to get people straightened out and on the right path again. All He asked was that man loves Him as He loved man. All He wanted them to do was to love each other. But, as usual, most at the people wouldn’t listen to the men God sent; they were too busy having what they called” a good time.” Finally, they became so wicked that God decided to clean up the world by washing it with a gigantic flood.

God is clean and holy; He wanted His people clean and holy too. He could not bear to look down upon a world grown filthy with evil. Yet, in His infinite mercy, He gave His people one more chance: He told them through Noah, His chosen spokesman, that He would spare anyone who would turn away from wrongdoing and do what was right, and worship Him. I’m sure that it grieved the heart of God that no one would listen to Noah, but no one would.

So “the rain descended, and the floods came” until even the mountains were covered, and only Noah and his family and the animals in the ark were alive and safe.

When it was all over, God sent a beautiful present-a glorious rainbow in the sky, with colors more beautiful than any you ever saw on any Christmas tree…

Things began all over again, and more people came to fill the earth. In time, they forgot all about the Great Flood, and they began to abuse the beautiful, rain-washed earth again with their wickedness. God kept sending special men to speak to them, to try to get them to turn back to Him and His perfect way of life. The people treated these prophets very badly: some they ridiculed, and some they threw into prison and some they killed. They were selfish, and cruel, and they wanted their own way. The prophets were good and great men-but they failed.

Finally God was so concerned, and He loved the world so much, that He decided to try once again, with the dearest possession He had: His own Son. He would send His own Son to earth; perhaps they would listen to Him!

He knew that His Son would have to be born like a human being, and live and look like a human being, in order to reach human beings. God wanted His Son to be accepted on earth; He also wanted to show the people of earth what the Father, our God, is like.

God looked the world over and chose a young and pure maiden named Mary to be the mother of His Son. Now, God could have put His Son Jesus Christ on earth in any way He wanted, but wasn’t it an indication of his love that he chose to honor a human being in allowing her to be the mother of His Child? What a present that was for Mary!

What man can forget the moments when life is lifted above the ordinary and the splendor of God shines into human hearts?

It happened on Christmas Eve. New-found friends had opened their hearts and their home to the immigrant boy from Scotland. Joyously) Peter had helped decorate a fragrant spruce tree. Then he had sat on a kitchen stool and carefully cut out cookies) decorating them with cherries and nuts.

Later there had been a family sing around the piano - “Silent Night, Holy Night,” “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen,” “The Holly and the Ivy,” and “0 Little Town of Bethlehem.” As they sang, into the little house there came the unmistakable feeling of a Presence. Everyone felt it.

It was something more than just the spirit of Christmas, that spirit of expectancy which warms the heart and melts into nothingness the arid practicability of other days. It was as if Christ Himself had entered that home and quietly joined the family circle.

“I must go… I’ve a long drive ahead” The look on his face clearly revealed his reluctance to leave. “If you must go,” his host said, “I have just one request to make of you. Would you have a little prayer with us before you leave?”

So, as the family stood around the open fire, the voice with the pleasant Scottish burr had crowned a perfect evening with a prayer of gratitude that the Christ child had come into the world.

Later, his thoughts were with his friends in the little white house. Friendship was there-and love; joy and oneness and good will-and God. For that family the angels’ prophecy had come true. For them, there was indeed “on earth peace) good will toward men.”

And for other families too} who lived along the white ribbon of a road} the prophecy had become fact. Frosty stars seemed to lean close over the rooftops of little homes. Lights streamed from the windows. Gay Christmas lights twinkled on lawns. Once} as Peter drove along, he heard children caroling. From an open doorway came snatches of laughter. These people, too, were caught up in the all-pervading spirit of Christmas.

Suddenly, filled with a great wistfulness, it brought tears. Even then, in other parts of the world, there was anything but music and laughter-only strikes and bread lines} hunger marches, rebellion, and bloodshed.

The thought - became a prayer on his lips… “Ob, God, why can’t more people, all of us, open our hearts to the wonderful spirit abroad in the world tonight - not just on Christmas, but on every day? What a happy place this old earth could be if-oh, God, if only we would keep Christmas the whole year through.”

Christmas, my child, is always.

It was always in the heart of God. It was born there. Only He could have thought of it.

Like God, Christmas is timeless and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting.

It is something even more than what happened that night in starlit little Bethlehem; it has been behind the stars forever.

There was Christmas in the heart of God before the world was formed. He gave Jesus to us, the night the angels sang, yes-but the Bible tells us that Jesus shared a great glory with the Father long before the world was made. Jesus was always, too!

God’s Spirit has always been, too; the Spirit “moved upon the face of the waters” at the time of the beginning of the world. And the Holy Spirit visited the mother of Jesus and brought forth our Lord as the Christ Child, in the manger. . . .

Christmas is always. It has been always. But we have not always understood it.

When I was a little girl, the word “Christmas” was magic! It meant climbing into a railroad “sleeping car” and going from our home in Osceola, Arkansas, to my grandfather’s home ‘way down in Uvalde, Texas. It meant a happy family reunion with all my aunts and uncles and their children, under the great spreading Texas roof. It meant warm weather in the middle of winter. It meant loads of “goodies” spread on the long family table, with Grandfather at the head thanking God for His abundant blessings and asking that His grace be with us all. It meant a family gathering at an early bedtime around the huge fireplace in grandfather’s bedroom, when we popped corn and ate fresh, luscious fruit and said our good-night prayers. I can still see that blessed room, with the well-thumbed Bible beside my grandfather’s big wicker chair. It was quite a family.

But, of course, we were still children then, and we spoke as children, and we understood as children, and it was a long time before we grew enough spiritually to understand Christmas as God meant it to be. (Too many of us, I think, never grow out of our childish concepts of Christmas!)

On Christmas Eve, down there in Texas, we always went to the church first, for the lovely service, and then to the town square with its breathtaking, brilliantly lighted Christmas tree, where there were little gifts for the children. And when we woke up in the morning, there was another Christmas tree which had appeared “miraculously” as we slept; the whole family gathered around it, and again we sensed the spirit of love running through the circle. There were gifts for everyone-but not too much! How grateful I am for that, now! The real gift was the love we had for one another, and the sheer joy of just being together, all one in love.

Is this not the true Christmas? Isn’t that what Jesus came to accomplish-”A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another … “? At least, in those first childhood Christmases, we began to learn that lesson of love. The gifts were secondary; the greatest gift of all was the plain, simple gift of love.

Isn’t it strange how children love the simple things? You can give a child a most expensive, intricately assembled toy, and after he has examined its color and mechanism, he will put that toy aside for an empty spool and a piece of string. Not long ago, a man I know complained of the way his boys “went through their Christmas gifts like a cyclone” -and by the end of the day had them strewn all through the house and all over the yard-and had turned to play with some empty cardboard boxes. He promised himself that “Next year they are going to get a pile of old cardboard boxes and a knife, and that’s all!”

The challenge of simplicity is a magnet to t e human spirit. Much of the beauty of Christmas lies in its challenge to look further, deeper, until we find its secret in the heart of God. But we never find that unless we look beyond the presents under the tree…
Sometimes, when I was still a child, Christmas came for me in the summer, when we visited my father’s folks in Mississippi. There I found the same warmth of family love. What a wonderful time we had in that old, rambling, two-story white house in Centerville, Mississippi. There were beautiful “summer Christmas trees” on the front lawn, adorned with velvety white magnolia blossoms. I remember the heavily-loaded fig tree just outside our bedroom window; I just reached out of that window, and touched it. This was Christmas, too, in our hearts, for there was an abundance of peace and love for God and each other.

I learned that Christmas could come on a summer’s day. Christmas could come at any season, if that sense of love were strong in the family.

Have you ever stopped to think that our Lord chose to come to earth as part of a family? He heartily approved of the family, as a social and spiritual unit. When we talk about the first Christmas, do we not always see the Holy Family in the humble manger? It couldn’t be Christmas, without them there!

When we are careless about our family relationships, we are losing Christmas.

Following my marriage with my first sweetheart in my ‘teens, God blessed me with a wonderful spiritual child, my beloved first-born, Tom. It was Tom who gently led me to the feet of the Savior, nine years ago, by his quiet and steady devotion to Him in every area of his life. It was Roy’s three motherless children and my feeling of spiritual inadequacy in meeting the problems of being a stepmother that made me look with longing at the serenity of Tom’s face. I knew he had someone he could depend upon, and I needed that someone.

To Tom, Christmas was every day, for Christ was with him every day. Christ had been born in him. Every heart is, or can be, a manger in which the Lord is constantly reborn.

We are too worldly-wise about Christmas, too sophisticated - and shoddy. Getting and spending in order to “give,” we forget what was given us at Christmas; we have lost its deeper meaning and its joy; growing older, too many of us have not grown wiser about it, but only “adult.” Christmas, we say, is for children.

Occasionally, throughout this little book, Dale Evans Rogers speaks to the children. “Christmas, my child is always…” or “This, my child, is a wonderful mystery.” But the children to whom she speaks are aged seven to seventy; they are youngsters and grown-ups. She speaks thus to those who have had the courage to remain young in heart, to all who understand that “Except ye… become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The age of her “child” means nothing; she speaks to the hearts of all who are arrested by the mystic mystery of Christmas, who know that it is something more than a present under a tree, who would approach in childlike (not childish) faith to discover its I nobler, deeper spiritual meaning. She speaks to all the yearning children of God, for whom God made Christmas…

If you insist that Christmas is just a day, perhaps you had better not read this book at all…

But if you can understand that Christmas is always and has been always, that it is not a moment in time nor yet a date on the calendar but “a state of heart”… then perhaps you had better read it… slowly… again and again… For here is Christmas as God meant it; here is the Incarnation that challenges the mind of man and warms and often breaks his heart, in such language and beauty as God might use in explaining it to His children…

Here is Christmas, my child, perhaps as you have never heard it before, certainly as you shall never forget it…