To all by the manger, the shepherds, their minds full of the strange sight
they had witnessed, recount the marvel. They tell how one appeared with
such brightness about him as in old times they had heard gave witness that
the Lord God would speak to His people; how their fear at his presence was
quieted by his strange and joyful words; and how, when he had said, "Ye
shall find a child wrapped in swaddling-clothes, lying in a manger," they
suddenly were aware of a host of angels round about them sounding praise,
to which God also listened.

Those to whom they told these things were amazed indeed at the
strangeness. What did the marvel mean, they wondered. They could
know no more than the shepherds had told them, and as for these men, they
went away to their flocks again, praising God, for now they too, had seen
the child, and it was all true, and with their human voice they caught up
the song of rejoicing which had fallen from angelic lips.

There was one who heard it all, and we may think did not say much or ask
much, but laid it away in her heart. It was Mary, and she had, in the
treasure-house where she put away this wonder, other thoughts and
recollections in company with it. There, in her inmost heart, she kept the
remembrance of a heavenly visitor who had appeared to her when she was
alone, and had quieted her fear by words that told her of this coming
birth, and filled her soul with the thought that He whom she should bear
was to have the long-deserted throne and a kingdom without end. She
remembered how, when she visited her cousin Elizabeth, she was greeted
with a psalm of rejoicing that sprang to the lips of that holy woman, and
from her own heart had come a psalm of response.

And now the child was born--born in the place of David, yet born to be