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.