ere liable to be taxed. Nowadays, and in our
country, people have their names taken down at the door of their own
houses, and pay their tax in the town where they live. But then, in Judea,
it was different. If a man had always lived in one place, and his parents
before him, well and good: there his name was taken down, and there he was
taxed. But if he was of a family that had left another place, he went back
to the old home, and there his name was registered. There were many, it
may be, who at this time were visiting Bethlehem for this purpose.

At least, we know of two amongst these travelers; devout and humble people
they were; Joseph, a carpenter, living in Nazareth, a village of Galilee,
sixty miles or more to the northward, and Mary, his wife. Together they
were coming to Bethlehem, for while Nazareth was now their home, they were
sprung from a family that once lived in Bethlehem, and though they were
now poor and lowly, that family was the royal family, and King David, the
greatest king that ever sat on the Jewish throne, was their ancestor.
Perhaps, as they climbed the hill, they thought of Ruth, who had gleaned
in the corn-fields just where they were passing, and no doubt they thought
of Ruth's great-grandson, King David, who was born here, and here kept his
father's sheep,--such sheep as even now they could see on the hillsides,
watched by the watching shepherds.

They came, like the rest, to the caravanserai, but found it already filled
with 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 th