[Alleyoop-users] at Goeinge forest. FELIX By EVAL

[Campas F. <fri...@ap...>]

Ith travelers. They could not have room with other men and women, and
yet there was shelter to be had, for the place where the horses and
beasts of burden stood was not all taken up. It may be that many of
those now occupying the inn had come on Joseph's errand, and, not being
merchants, had come unattended by the beasts that bore the goods of
merchants, who were there occupying the inn; and what were they there
for? We can only guess. All is forgotten of that gathering; men remember
only the two travelers from Nazareth who could find no room in the inn,
and made their resting-place by a manger. For there, away from the
crowd, was born to Mary a child, whom she wrapped in swaddling-clothes
and laid in the manger. She was away from home; she was not even in a
friend's house, nor yet in the inn; the Lord God had made ready a crib
for the babe in the feeding-place of cattle. What gathering of friends
could there be to rejoice over a child born in this solitary place? Yet
there were some, friends of the child and of the child's mother, who
welcomed its birth with great rejoicing. It may be that when Mary was
laying Him upon His first hard earthly resting-place, there was, not far
off, such a sight as never before was seen on earth. On the hilly slopes
about Bethlehem were flocks of sheep that, day and night, cropped the
grass, watched by shepherds, just as, so long before, young David, in
the same place, had watched his father's sheep. These shepherds were
devout men, who sang, we may easily believe, the songs which the
shepherd David had taught them;