make Jerusalem the mistress of the world. They would have said that the
Christ should be born in a palace and laid on softest down and covered
with silken robes. What a surprise was this manger to their thoughts and
shock to their feelings. Were ever deep-seated, long-cherished hopes
treated with more cruel irony? But God's ways are not as our ways.
Christ was brought into the world at the very point where he could get
the deepest strongest hold upon it and most powerfully swing it starward
from the dust. He was born among neither the very rich nor the very
poor, but in the great middle class at the center of gravity of
humanity, by lifting which he would lift the world. Had he come as a
pampered child of wealth he would never have got hold of the great heart
of humanity; but he came as one of the people, knitting himself into
humble relations, growing up among plain folk of the countryside and
toiling as a common workingman. And so when he began to preach the
common people heard him gladly.

Promise was exactly matched by fulfillment. "Ye shall find a babe," was
the promise of the angel, and now the record reads, "And they found the
babe." When did God ever lead us to expect anything and then disappoint
us? He gave us thirst that urges us to find water, and matching this
need he has created bubbling springs and sparkling streams. He gave us
hunger that seeks bread, and it finds fields of golden grain and
orchards of rosy fruit. He gave us minds that seek truth, and they find
it; he gave us a craving for love, and heart matches heart. He set
eternity in our hearts and gave us deep instincts that reach after the
Infinite, hearts that cry, "Shew, us the Father and it sufficeth us."
Shall all lower needs be satisfied and this supreme search and cry of
the soul be disappointed and mocked? "And they found the babe," is the
answer to this need and promise. God sends us with all our deep needs
and mysterious longings to that cradle in Bethlehem, where they will be