“The wise men passed onwards to the humble village. Again the star shone out in the blue heavens, and slowly sank earthward over the Cave of Bethlehem, and presently the devout Kings were at the feet of Jesus.
…The babe, it seems, will move the heights of the world as well as the lowlands. He will now call wisdom to His crib, as He has but lately called simplicity.
Yet how different is His call! For wise men and for Kings some signs were wanted, and, because they were wise Kings, scientific signs.
As the sweet patience and obscure hardships of a lowly life prepared the souls of the Shepherds, so too the Kings their years of oriental wisdom were as the preparation of the gospel.
Yet true science has also its child-like spirit, its beautiful simplicity. Learning makes children of its professors, when their hearts are humble and their lives pure.
It was a simple thing of them to leave their homes, their latticed palaces or their royal tents. They were simple too, when they were in their trouble at Jerusalem, because of the disappearance of the star.
But when the end of all broke upon them, when the star left them at that half stable and half cave, and they beheld a Child of abject poverty, lying in a manger upon straw between an ox and an ass, with, as the world would speak, an old artisan of the lower class to represent His father, and a girlish, ill- assorted Mother, then was the triumph of their simplicity.
They hesitated not for one moment.”
From Bethlehem by Father F. W. Faber
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