Confucius the son of a soldier. The city must go to the country for its
masters, and the world draws its best blood and brains from the farm. It
was in accordance with this principle that the Saviour of the world
should be born, not in a city and palace, but in a country village, and
that his first bed should be, not a downy couch, but a slab of stone.




VII. The Wonderful Night Draws Near


"Now it came to pass in those days, there went out a decree from Cæsar
Augustus, that all the world should be enrolled." This is the point at
which the orderly and scholarly Luke opens his account of the birth of
our Lord. It seems like going a long way off from and around to the end
in view. But there are no isolated facts and forces in the world and all
things work together. When we see providence start in we never can tell
where it is going to come out. If God is about to bless us, he may start
the chain of causation that shall at length reach us in some far-off
place or land; or if he is about to save a soul in China he may start
with one of us in the contribution we make to foreign missions. Cæsar
Augustus, master of the world, from time to time ordered a census to be
taken of the empire that he might know its resources and reap from it a
richer harvest of taxes. It was probably between the months of December
and March, B.C. 5-4, that such a census was being taken in the province
of Syria.

In accordance with ancient Jewish usage, all citizens repaired to the
tribe and village from which they were descended, and were there