but delighting in the unfading beauties of God’s nature, reminded at every step of his wonderful
dealings with his people, and singing the psalms of his servants of old.
We may kneel at his manger in Bethlehem, the town of Judaea where Jacob buried his
beloved Rachel, and a pillar, now a white mosque, marks her grave; where Ruth was rewarded for
her filial devotion, and children may still be seen gleaning after the reapers in the grainfields, as
she did in the field of Boaz; where his ancestor, the poet-king, was born and called from his father’s
flocks to the throne of Israel; where shepherds are still watching the sheep as in that solemn night
when the angelic host thrilled their hearts with the heavenly anthem of glory to God, and peace on
earth to men of his good pleasure; where the sages from the far East offered their sacrifices in the
name of future generations of heathen converts; where Christian gratitude has erected the oldest
church in Christendom, the "Church of the Nativity," and inscribed on the solid rock in the "Holy
Crypt," in letters of silver, the simple but pregnant inscription: "Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus
natus est." When all the surroundings correspond with the Scripture narrative, it is of small account
whether the traditional grotto of the Nativity is the identical spot—though pointed out as such it
would seem already in the middle of the second century.^165
We accompany him in a three days’ journey from Bethlehem to Nazareth, his proper home,
where he spent thirty silent years of his life in quiet preparation for his public work, unknown in
his divine character to his neighbors and even the members of his own household (John 7:5), except
his saintly parents. Nazareth is still there, a secluded, but charmingly located mountain village,
with narrow, crooked and dirty streets, with primitive stone houses where men, donkeys and camels
are huddled together, surrounded by cactus hedges and fruitful gardens of vines, olive, fig, and
pomegranates, and favorably distinguished from the wretched villages of modern Palestine by
comparative industry, thrift, and female beauty; the never failing "Virgin’s Fountain," whither Jesus
must often have accompanied his mother for the daily supply of water, is still there near the Greek
Church of the Annunciation, and is the evening rendezvous of the women and maidens, with their
water-jars gracefully poised on the head or shoulder, and a row of silver coins adorning their
forehead; and behind the village still rises the hill, fragrant with heather and thyme, from which he
may often have cast his eye eastward to Gilboa, where Jonathan fell, and to the graceful, cone-like
Tabor—the Righi of Palestine—northward to the lofty Mount Hermon—the Mont Blanc of
Palestine—southward to the fertile plain of Esdraëlon—the classic battle-ground of Israel—and
westward to the ridge of Carmel, the coast of Tyre and Sidon and the blue waters of the
Mediterranean sea—the future highway of his gospel of peace to mankind. There he could feast
upon the rich memories of David and Jonathan, Elijah and Elisha, and gather images of beauty for
his lessons of wisdom. We can afford to smile at the silly superstition which points out the kitchen
of the Virgin Mary beneath the Latin Church of the Annunciation, the suspended column where
she received the angel’s message, the carpenter shop of Joseph and Jesus, the synagogue in which
he preached on the acceptable year of the Lord, the stone table at which he ate with his disciples,
the Mount of Precipitation two miles off, and the stupendous monstrosity of the removal of the
dwelling-house of Mary by angels in the air across the sea to Loretto in Italy! These are childish
fables, in striking contrast with the modest silence of the Gospels, and neutralized by the rival
traditions of Greek and Latin monks; but nature in its beauty is still the same as Jesus saw and(^165) W. Hepworth Dixon (The Holy Land, ch. 14) ingeniously pleads for the traditional cave, and the identity of the inn of the
Nativity with the patrimony of Boaz and the home of David.
A.D. 1-100.