that long since a certain Child was
born in Bethlehem of Judea.

How strange it is, when you come to think of it, that the birth of a
child in an out-of-the-way village in Palestine should change the
calendars of the world! We find in this commonplace fact a prophecy of
His radical transforming power in every department of life. He was
destined to take the moral government of the race upon His shoulder as
none other ever has. He was to alter the flow of the spiritual
currents in human society and ultimately to change the history of the
world.

He did it all while He was still a young man. He was only thirty-three
years old when they put Him to death upon the Cross. He had used
thirty of those thirty-three years in quiet preparation for the great
tasks which were to come. No wonder the three years of which we know
so much were mighty when we think of the thirty years of preparation
standing behind them! Ten years of training and discipline for one of
public action! Ten days of study and devotion for one day of healing,
redemptive effort! Ten hours of silence and prayer before God for one
hour of speech in the ears of men!

He did it all in His youth and when He died at the age of thirty-three
He did not look down and say, "I have failed because My life is cut off
all too soon." He looked up and said, "I have finished the work which
Thou gavest Me to do."

How marvellous was the life of this young man who changed the history
of the world! If we could get away from the idea that He is a
stained-glass window or a marble statue or a lovely story in a book
which most men seldom read--if we could only see Him as He was, the
Word made flesh, real, warm, alive, our hearts would leap.

He was born in the manger of a stable. He grew up in a carpenter's
home and in a carpenter's shop. He never saw the inside of a college,
yet somehow He learned to think straight and to speak as never man
spake. He lived with the birds and the flowers, the trees, the hills
and the stars. He thought deeply upon the interests and needs of men
until He knew what was in man and needed not that any should tell
Him--He told them. He looked up with pure eyes and a pure heart until
He saw God. Therefore, when He spoke His word was with power; and when
He lived His life was with power; and when He stretched forth His hand,
His touch had healing in it.

His mind was exceedingly broad. He had never been outside the borders
of His ow