All night long I was hushed into awe by the coming of new life, and hurt by a pain that the presence of death does not give.
When it was almost morning, I heard a cry, and the words of the folk-song changed into the words of the Bible: “And so she brought forth her first-born child.”
We were high over the city. It was just before dawn. In the east I caught the first hint of the morning light, and down below me I saw the roofs of the city dimly outlined in the fading darkness.
As I watched, the Doctor came out and joined me, weary, but with a look upon her face that I had never seen before.
“I never perform this service,” she said slowly, “without feeling that I have been doing a sacrificial act.”
I did not speak.
“No wonder,” said the Doctor, “that the symbol of the world’s salvation has been so long a mother with her baby in her arms. It pictures the greatest glory of all our human life.”
The light grew stronger in the east. The Doctor’s eyes were strained toward it, and her face was very beautiful.
“I suppose it is because it is so near Christmas time that I think of this,” she continued. “I wonder why we have always tried to read a supernatural meaning into the story of the Christ-child. ‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,—the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore the holy thing that shall be born of thee’—I tell you,” said the Doctor, interrupting herself energetically, “that means only that the birth of human life is always sacred. We might well say at every birth: ‘Go and search—for the young child—and bring me word—that I may come and worship him.’”
We watched the light grow strong and clear over the quiet city. The grimy tenement houses and the polluted streets became more and more distinct. Then the noise of rattling wheels and of hurrying feet came faintly to our ears. The toil of another day had begun.