would doubtless have found better accommodations.




VIII. The Birth


In that cave Mary brought forth her first-born son; and as there appears
to have been no woman's hand there to minister to her, she herself
wrapped the new-born babe in swaddling clothes; and as there was no
other cradle or bed to receive it, she laid the child in the trough from
which the camels were fed. This is all we know of what took place on
that memorable night from which the history of the Christian world is
now dated. The apocryphal gospels, legends that afterwards grew up, fill
the chamber with supernal light so that visitors had to shade their eyes
from the splendor of the child; and the painters portray the holy child
and mother with halos of glory around their heads. But this is all
imagination and myth. Jesus was born as other human beings are born, and
looked just like a human child. No one seeing him could have guessed
that a unique birth had ruptured the continuity of nature and brought a
divine Man into the world. There was no glory streaming from his person,
and no spectacular display of pageantry and pomp such as attended the
birth of a Cæsar. The Son of Man did not come with observation, but
stole into the world silently and unseen. If we could have gazed upon
the Christ-child as it lay in its manger, we would have been
disappointed and thought that nothing extraordinary had happened. But a
great event rarely seems great at the time; long centuries may elapse
before it looms into view and is seen in its central place as the axis
of history. Outward size and circumstance do not measure inward power