crown, brides on their way to the marriage, bannered armies on their
way to the battle, and highest angels in their flight from star to
star, might stop to say of this sight, as Moses of the burning bush,
"Let me turn aside, and see this great sight!"

The prophet foretells a time when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and, bound in the same
stall, and fed at the same manger, the lion shall eat straw with the
ox. Here is a greater wonder! This stable is the house of God, the
very gate of heaven: under this dusty roof, inside those narrow walls,
He lodges whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain: the tenant of
this manger is the Son, who, leaving the bosom of His Father to save
us, here pillows His head on straw; of this feeble babe the hands are
to hurl Satan from his throne, and wrench asunder the strong bars of
death; this one tender life, this single corn-seed is to become the
prolific parent of a thousand harvests, and fill the garners of glory
with the fruits of salvation. Mean as it looks, yet more splendid
than marble palaces,--more sacred than the most venerable and hallowed
temples, here the Son of God was born, and with Him were born Faith,
Hope, and Charity--our Peace, our Liberty, and our Eternal Life. Had
He not been born, we had never been born again; had He not lain in a
manger, we had never lain in Abraham's bosom; had He not been wrapped
in swaddling-clothes, we had been wrapped in everlasting flames; had
His head in infancy not been pillowed on straw, and in death on
thorns, ours had never been crowned in glory. But that He was born,
better we had never been; life had been a misfortune to which time had
brought no change, and death no relief, and the grave no rest. "Glory
to God in the highest" that He was born: we had otherwise been lifting
up our eyes in torment with this unavailing, endless cry, "O that my
mother had been my grave! Cursed be the day wherein I was born?"

If language cannot express the love and gratitude we owe to the
Saviour, let our lives do so. Shallow streams run brawling over their
pebbly beds, but the broad, deep river pursues its course in silence
to the sea; and so is it with our strongest, deepest feelings. Great
joy like great sorrow, great gladness like great grief, great
admiration like great detestation, take breath and speech away. On
first seeing Mont Blanc as the sun rose to light up his summit and
irradiate another an