Surely the God of Battles esteemed that simple libation as holy a thing as holocausts of bullocks and rams, and forgave many of the sins of those rough, hard outlaws because of the loving devotion they showed toward one whom He had chosen to be the deliverer of Israel.
An old legend says that after the mystic Star had guided the Wise Men to the Saviour’s cradle, it fell from heaven and quenched its divine fire in “David’s Well.” And surely, if the Star had fallen, it could have found no more fitting resting place than the Well by the Gate, whose water had been won by such unselfish adventure and dedicated with such tender gratitude.
THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS
VI
THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS
In the short twilight of the winter evening a husband and wife are trudging wearily along the road which winds past the high gray walls of Jerusalem—no longer Jerusalem the proud capital of the dynasty of David, but a mere provincial town of the mighty Roman Empire, whose streets are dizzy with the shouting of a dozen languages and thronged with crowds of Greeks, Romans, Persians, Armenians, Ethiopians, and travelers from even more distant lands, who rub shoulders carelessly with the fanatical Pharisees and intriguing Sadducees whose mutual bickerings make them a laughing-stock to their Gentile masters; while there sits upon the throne of David a half-breed underling Edomite, through whose diseased veins flow the cruelty and lust and cowardice and treachery of turgid streams of unspeakable ancestry—Herod, called in grim jest, “the Great.”
December in Judea is a cold, dreary month, with penetrating storms of rain and sleet. It may even snow; and sometimes the drifts lie knee-deep on that highroad from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. So they hasten their steps, these footsore travelers who have come all the way from distant Galilee at the command of their Roman rulers; for darkness is coming on, and this night, of all nights, they must find a safe, warm resting-place.
But when Bethlehem is at last reached, their cheerful anticipation changes to utter, weary dejection; for the village inn proves to be already overcrowded with other Bethlehemites who have returned to their birthplace to be registered there for the census.
Only in the stable is there room; and this is a low, dark place, half building, half cave. In front, it is walled up with rough stones; but at the rear it extends far into what seems to have been originally a natural opening in the hillside. Around three sides of the stable runs a low, level shelf, with an iron ring every few feet, to which the beasts are tied as they eat the fodder spread before them on the stone ledge. This manger is not an uncomfortable resting place for the hardy muleteers, who often sleep there on the straw. But it makes a hard bed for Joseph—and for Mary.