And yet beyond the darkness, beyond the clouds and the shadows, there was a brightness such as never shone on the world before. The full significance of that event no imagination could conceive. The Magi, bending low and offering gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, could not grasp the infinite destinies that were wrapped up in the life of him who lay apparently a helpless child in his mother's arms. Nor could that mother herself, in her fondest dreams, take in the great reality. Had her eyes been opened to see what was dawning on the world, she would have seen the new faith extending, till nations came to measure their own existence by the years and centuries from the birth of Christ.
Such are some of the thoughts that come to us in the Grotto of the Nativity. If it be indeed the place of our Saviour's birth, then is there not on the round globe a spot of greater interest than this, over which shone the guiding star, and sang the heavenly voices: for it has witnessed immeasurably the greatest event of all time. The birth of Christ was the coming of God into humanity — the coming of a new life into the world. The manger of Christ was the cradle of our Religion. Under this lowly roof was born, not only Christ the Lord, but Christianity and Christendom, from which have flowed all the mighty influences of modern civilization. He who would trace these to their source, must follow them far back in the ages to this subterranean chamber, as the fountain in the rock from which they sprung. Of all this what could that Hebrew mother know? Only as she looked into that sleeping face, she may have remembered how it was written, "A little child shall lead them." That child was to be indeed the leader of the human race. All history was in that manger-cradle. The fate of unborn generations was held in that little hand.
