Read Ebook: The Christmas city by Leary Lewis Gaston

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They lived together happily ever afterward. Even sad Naomi found a new interest in life when she took into her lonely old arms the form of little Obed. For this bit of Bethlehem history, like the first, and like the greatest later on, ends with the coming of a baby boy. And doubtless, if the whole of the tale were told us, we should some day see grandmother Ruth crooning over Obed's son Jesse, who was to be the father of a king.

THE BOY WHO WAS TO BE KING

An ancient Hebrew commentary on First Samuel says that Jesse became "a weaver of veils for the sanctuary." This may be why the story of David and Goliath compares the giant's staff to "a weaver's beam." Whatever his occupation, the grandson of rich Boaz must have been a man of some means, and influential in Bethlehem society. Also he had seven fine, stalwart sons. Indeed, he had eight sons; but, as we all know, the youngest was out tending the sheep when Samuel came.

The rough and ready era of the Judges, when every man did that which was right in his own eyes, was now gone forever. Israel had a king; and a tall, handsome figure of a man King Saul was. And for a while he was a king who defeated foreign invaders on every side. But Saul's character could not stand the test of the sudden elevation to a position of power and responsibility. His strength lay in brilliant, spectacular efforts, rather than in a patient, well-organized rule. Quarrels arose between the jealous tribes of Israel. Conquered foes prepared new and better equipped forays against the poorly protected frontier of the new kingdom. Worst of all, Saul broke with his tried advisers and became prey to an irrational, suspicious melancholy, which prevented him from coping with dangers which a few years earlier would only have aroused his ambitious energy.

Saul had failed; so Samuel, the veteran prophet, judge and king-maker, went quietly to Bethlehem to select a new leader who should direct the troublous destinies of Israel.

It was doubtless the same farm where the young stranger from beyond Jordan had gleaned the sheaves of barley almost a century before. How proud Naomi would have been if she could have lived to see those tall great-grandchildren of Ruth and Boaz! How excited we boys used to get as we saw the seven sons of Jesse standing there in a row, and waited for old Samuel to tell us which one was to be the king! Surely it must be the eldest, Eliab, who is so tall and handsome, the very image of what Saul was in his youth. No, it is not Eliab, perhaps just because he is too much like King Saul. Abinadab is rejected and Shammah, too; and the prophet's eye passes even more rapidly over Nethaneel and Raddai and Ozem.

Then Samuel turns to the father with a perplexed frown.

"Are these all your sons?"

"Yes--that is, all that are grown up. David is only a boy. He is taking care of the sheep this morning."

"Call him, too," commands Samuel. "Let Abinadab mind the sheep for a while."

So in a few minutes David is brought in. He is fair in complexion, like so many Judean Jews to-day, but his skin is burnt to a deep tan by the sun of the sheep pasture. His eye has a captivating twinkle, and he can hardly keep from humming a tune even in the presence of the prophet.

We guessed it all the while! This is indeed a royal fellow; and the old prophet touches the thick brown hair of the shepherd lad with a strange, loving reverence as he tells him that some day he must be his people's king.

This time I think that Josephus is probably right. For he tells us that while they were all sitting at dinner afterward, Samuel whispered in the boy's ear "that God chose him to be their king: and exhorted him to be righteous, and obedient to His commands, for that by this means his kingdom would continue for a long time, and that his house should be of great splendor and celebrated in the world."

Surely wise old Samuel must have given the boy some such advice as that.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE WELL

It was a long while, however, before David really became a king. As his frame grew into a sturdy manhood, he fought with lions and bears and Philistine champions. His sweet singing brought him to the notice of Saul and he became the king's favorite musician, until the jealousy of the half-crazed monarch drove the young man into exile. Then for years the former shepherd lived a wild, half-brigand life among the caves of the rugged steppe-land south of Bethlehem, gradually gathering around him a company of intrepid outlaws, administering rough justice over a number of villages which put themselves under his protection, making sudden forays into the Philistine country just to the west, and again so hotly pursued by the soldiers of the relentless Saul that he was forced to seek an asylum among the enemies of Israel, who were always glad to forget old scores and welcome this dauntless free-lance and his redoubtable band of warriors.

It may have been during this outlaw period, or it may have been shortly after David's accession to the throne, when his kingdom was still disorganized, and an easy prey to foreign invaders. At any rate, David and his band were hiding in the cave of Adullam, a few miles from Bethlehem. The little company was for the moment safe, but the country all around was overrun by foreign troops, and even Bethlehem, the scene of so many happy boyhood memories, was occupied by a Philistine garrison.

No wonder that David felt very weary and discouraged as he thought of the old home town in the hands of heathen soldiers. No wonder that he sometimes became irritable and petulant, and wished for things that he could not have. There was a spring right by the cave of Adullam. The inhabitants of Palestine, however, can distinguish between water drawn from different sources, in a manner which seems marvelous to our duller taste. Yet we need not believe that the water in the City of David was any better than that of the cave of Adullam in order to sympathize with the tired, homesick cry--

"Oh, that one would give me water to drink of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!"

Then there was a little stir among David's bodyguard. One soldier whispered to another, who nudged a third; and soon three dark forms slipped quietly away from the circle of lights around the campfire. For those rough outlaws idolized their fair-haired young leader, and they had been worried and grieved by his recent fit of melancholy.

At midnight there was a sudden rattling of the well-chain in the square by the Bethlehem gate--then a challenge from the startled Philistine sentry--a rush of soldiers along the stony street. But the three seasoned warriors slipped easily through the camp of the half-awakened army. They turned and doubled through the familiar maze of narrow, winding streets until they came to the steep terraces at the south of the town, where they dropped out of sight among the perplexing shadows of the olive orchards, through which they made their way swiftly back to the wild steppe-land and the mountain fastness where the band kept watch over their sleeping chief.

Mighty men they were, these three, and it is no wonder that their exploit became one of the favorite tales of Hebrew history. But when they offered David the water for which he had longed, there came a lump into his throat and he said, "I can't take it. My thoughtless wish might have cost too much. It would be like drinking my brave men's blood, to drink that for which they have endangered their lives. It is too precious to drink. I will pour it out on the ground--so--as an offering to Jehovah."

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

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.

The sky has cleared now, and through the open door can be seen a square of twinkling stars, one of which shines with unusual brilliancy. Within, however, it is very dark; for the lantern of the night-watchman shines only a little way through the sombre shadows of the stable. The cattle and horses have finished munching the grain. The last uneasy lowing ceases. It is very still, except in one far corner where the strangers cannot sleep.

And then there is a baby's cry. And the bright star shines with glorious radiance over David's City. And upon the drowsy shepherds in the fields where the Moabitess gleaned, there bursts a wondrous light and the sound of heavenly singing.

For the fullness of time has come. Upon the humble Judean town has burst that glory sung by the prophets of old. The long line of Rachel and Ruth and royal David has at last issued in the King of kings.

THE BLOSSOMS OF MARTYRDOM

But even at that first Christmastide, Bethlehem must again be the scene of innocent suffering in another's place, as for the Christ-child's sake some twenty baby boys in the little town are put to death by order of King Herod, whose diseased, suspicious mind trembles at the thought of even an infant claimant for his throne.

Five hundred years before, when the strong young men of Bethlehem had been sent away into Babylonian exile, the loud wailing from bereaved, heart-broken homes had recalled to Jeremiah that other sad mother buried there by the lonely roadside. So now again, the awful outrage, perpetrated almost within sight of that venerable tomb, seems to be linked across the long centuries with the first Bethlehem grief; and once more, in the words of the Lamenting Prophet, there is

"Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; And she would not be comforted, Because they are not."

The Blossoms of Martyrdom--so a fourth century poet calls these little ones who were the first of all to suffer death for Christ's sake. And in that countless throng of those who "have come out of great tribulation" there must surely stand in the foremost rank the little band of Bethlehem children whose blood was shed because an infant Saviour had been born into an unwelcoming world.

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

THE STORY OF THE STABLE

Between the years 1480 and 1483, Brother Felix Fabri, a learned German monk of Ulm, made two voyages to Palestine, during the course of which he collected information of all sorts about the holy places, which he later published in a large and important book. Some of his statements about Bethlehem are very accurate. Others do not strike us as quite so convincing.

According to these stories told by Brother Felix, Boaz inherited from his father Salmon, who had married Rahab of Jericho, a large mansion built at the very edge of Bethlehem, so that part of the house projected outside the town wall. In the rock underneath the main building was a natural grotto which was used as a cellar, and also as a dwelling room during the hot months. The house passed in due time into the possession of Boaz' grandson Jesse, whose son David was born in the lower room. After David became king, however, the family removed to Jerusalem, the deserted homestead gradually came into a state of disrepair, and finally the part in the rock was used as a public stable. This degradation of the once splendid mansion was permitted by Providence, so that at last the great Son of David might be born amid humble surroundings, and yet in the very place where His famous ancestor first saw the light.

After our Lord's Ascension, His mother lived for fourteen years, dwelling in Jerusalem, whence every month she and her friends made a pious pilgrimage to Bethlehem, that they might worship at the cave of the Saviour's birth. This so enraged the Jews that finally they defiled the stable and blocked up its entrance with stones.

Following the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, in A. D. 70, Christians were again allowed to dwell in the Holy Land and to visit the place of the Nativity, which they cleansed from the Jewish defilement and hallowed by their worship. But in the year 132, the Emperor Hadrian laid waste the city of Bethlehem, placed in the sacred cave a statue of Jupiter and, as a crowning insult, instituted in the very Grotto of the Nativity the iniquitous rites of the Adonis cult, which continued to be celebrated there for almost two hundred years.

This, however, was the last heathen desecration of the holy spot. In the year 326 the pious Helena, mother of the Christian emperor, Constantine, "cleansed the place of the sweet Nativity of our Lord, cast out the abominations of the idols from the holy cave, overthrew all that she found there, and beneath the ruins found the Lord's manger entire." In the manger she discovered the stone on which the Blessed Virgin had placed the Babe's head, and the hay and the swaddling clothes and Joseph's sandals and the long, loose gown which Mary wore.

These were all carried to the capital, Constantinople, and remained five hundred years in the Cathedral of St. Sophia, until Charlemagne, returning from the conquest of Jerusalem , begged the relics as the reward of his holy labors and took them with him to the West. The hay was bestowed in the church of Sta. Maria Maggiore in Rome, the manger in St. John Lateran, and the garments in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle.

After St. Helena had purified the place of the Nativity, she erected above it a church of wondrous beauty, but in such a manner that the rock beneath and the cave in which the Saviour was born should remain untouched. Whereupon the Jews of Bethlehem in derision nicknamed the saintly empress "the Woman of the Stable."

But by the time we reach St. Helena and the building of the Bethlehem church, legend is beginning to merge into history.

THE EPITAPH OF THE LADY PAULA

The church at Bethlehem is crowded to the doors with a reverent assemblage, which overflows into the public square and fills all the nearby streets with silent, sad-faced worshippers. It is four hundred and four years since the blessed Nativity of our Lord, and the slow, solemn music which sounds faintly from within the heavy walls of the ancient church is the requiem of the noblest, sweetest, saddest lady who ever made her home in Bethlehem for Christ's sake.

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