Wonderingly Madelon waited. From the dry earth wherever the angel's staff had touched sprang fair, white roses. Timidly she stretched out her hand toward the nearest ones. In the light of the angel's smile she gathered them, until her arms were filled with flowers. Again she turned toward the manger, and quietly slipped to the circle of kneeling shepherds.
Closer she crept to the Child, longing, yet fearing, to offer her gift.
"How shall I know," she pondered, "whether He will receive this my gift as
His own?"
Berachah gazed in amazement at Madelon and the roses which she held. How came his child there, his child whom he had left safe on the hillside? And whence came such flowers! Truly this was a wonder night.
Step by step she neared the manger, knelt, and placed a rose in the Baby's hand. As the shepherds watched in silence, Mary bent over her Child, and Madelon waited for a sign. "Will He accept them?" she questioned. "How, oh, how shall I know?" As she prayed in humble silence, the Baby's eyes opened slowly, and over His face spread a smile.
THE LITTLE GRAY LAMB
ARCHIBALD BERESFORD SULLIVAN
Out on the endless purple hills, deep in the clasp of somber night, The shepherds guarded their weary ones— guarded their flocks of cloudy white, That like a snowdrift in silence lay, Save one little lamb with its fleece of gray.
Out on the hillside all alone, gazing afar with
sleepless eyes,
The little gray lamb prayed soft and low, its
weary face to the starry skies:
"O moon of the heavens so fair, so bright,
Give me—oh, give me—a fleece of white!"
No answer came from the dome of blue, nor comfort lurked in the cypress-trees; But faint came a whisper borne along on the scented wings of the passing breeze: "Little gray lamb that prays this night, I cannot give thee a fleece of white."