It was clear and cold. The hills of Moab were deep blue. They seemed very near. In a low carriage that bore every mark of long service, drawn by two thin dark horses and driven by an Arab in a dull brown Bedouin coat, with the long, heavy head-dress falling over his shoulders and protecting him from rain or sun, we drove out through the gate. Dark eyes watched us curiously. The horses at first were swift of foot and the carriage lurched and rolled down the steep grade of the valley of Hinnom, past the former German colony, over the new bridge; then, losing their enthusiasm, they climbed slowly. On a hillside the sheep were feeding, but how they could find enough to sustain life on those bare rocky slopes is hard to understand. Now we passed a flock following the shepherd in his vari-colored coat down a steep incline and through a valley which in the rainy season would be a rushing stream. We could hear the lambs call, and now and then the shepherd’s reprimand to a straying sheep. Over there were the fields of Boaz. How beautiful they must have looked when the heavy sheaves of wheat were yellow in the sun. The land of Moab seemed such a short distance away as we who had been half-way round the world thought of distance, but to loyal, faithful, loving Ruth those desert plains, rounded hills, and deep valleys meant distance enough to separate her forever from the home and kindred she must leave behind. The brave words came back to us: “Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.” She deserved the happiness she won out there in the fields as she followed the reapers. As if agreeing with our unspoken thoughts our guide turned and looked down at us. “Boaz, the owner of the field, married Ruth, the Moabite girl. She was very beautiful,” he said.

The wind was bleak on the hilltop as it was that night centuries ago and we were glad when we reached the protection of the low stone houses of the village of Bethlehem. Such a tiny village! Nothing was left of the glory of that other day when the busy tax-gatherers checked up the names of the people and the keeper of the Inn hurried about trying in vain to find room for his guests, when officers of the army in resplendent uniform and civil officers proud and haughty made every Jewish pilgrim conscious of the power of great Rome.

Nothing remains of the old inn or khan which was crowded on that night to its very gates. Thankful indeed must both Joseph and Mary have been for the protection of the cave with its great manger hewn out of the rock. Over that spot to which they went so gratefully for shelter now stands the Church of the Nativity. It is a simple beautiful church, but the shrines within are garish indeed.

By General Allenby’s command, the high forbidding walls of stone that have so long divided the interior and marred its beauty have been taken down. The walls had formerly separated the church into sections claimed by the various faiths. The nave of the church belongs to the Greeks, one transept to the Coptic Christians, the other to the Armenians. The Romanists have built a church and monastery close beside the little church of the Nativity, but worshipers could only reach the grotto to kneel at the manger of stone through a devious, difficult underground path. When the Turks captured Palestine they compelled the Armenians to open a passage through their wall that the Romanists might enter. As we stepped into the church we heard the chanting of their choir, and soon through the door in the Armenian transept came priests and altar boys in the rich robes of the church to say mass. We stood aside until they had passed and only the echo of their voices could be heard floating up from the cave below.

Ever since the coming of the Turks, Christmas and Easter services have been marred by desperate quarreling and bloodshed. At each service Turkish soldiers were on guard and swords and guns punished offenders but were unable to prevent the paying of old scores by Armenian and Romanist, Copt and Greek. The British general was exceedingly anxious that no such quarrels should mar the celebration of the first Christmas and Easter after the return of the holy places into the hands of Christians, to be theirs no matter what their creeds might be. In many languages, he made his appeal to the people. The American Colony of Jerusalem was asked to be present at the services to help quiet any trouble-makers, but they did not wish to assume the responsibility. Therefore certain individual members of the Red Cross Commission answered the General’s appeal, and were present all day at the services, quietly warning any of the rougher element who, as in the past days, attempted to start trouble by taunting words. Not a British soldier was present. The Commission members, wise, alert, and friendly, did their work well and the day passed in dignified impressive worship for the first time since the Turks took the Holy City. The General expressed his gratitude in most cordial notes of thanks to the men who had so successfully endeavored to carry out his wishes.

We waited until the mass was over and then, with our lighted candles, went down into the shadowy grotto. Myth and legend, superstitions weird and fantastic have gathered about all the sacred places. While these things mean little to the modern Christian, he is bound to respect the reverent belief in them held by many of his comrades in the faith. With confidence the guide tells of the hundreds of years the fire in the hidden place has burned, not once going out, just as it has burned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. If, as one kneels and prays, holding his taper close to the opening, it is lighted by the unseen holy fire, rich blessings will come to him and those he loves.

I shall never forget the thin, tired, sorrow-marked face of an Armenian woman whose taper, as she knelt murmuring prayers, suddenly caught the sacred flame. It was transformed. She went up the shadowy steps in a transport of joy. Nor shall I soon forget the face of a Russian woman as she swayed back and forth on her knees in an agony of prayer. When at last she rose she could not stand and a kindly attendant steadied her. He spoke to her in Russian and they talked softly for a moment. She was in Jerusalem on a pilgrimage when the war broke out. Her husband, her son, and a son-in-law were in the Russian army. Of them she had had no word. She had received a month since confirmation of the news of the death of her two daughters in prison. She could not go back to her home in the hot-bed of Bolshevism. She took a taper from the hand of a priest and went toward the place of the holy fire.

I was glad when we were in the fresh crisp air again, wandering through the streets of the little village, stopping for a few moments for coffee with a Syrian shopkeeper who wanted to sell us olive-wood beads with a beautiful carved cross as pendant. His son, a boy of twelve, spoke English. The father brought him out proudly. He attended a Quaker school for boys over in Ramallah and was having a holiday. The souvenirs offered for our inspection were poor tawdry things, but the faces of the salesmen were so eager that we could not disappoint them. Visitors had been exceedingly rare during the years of the war and curious friendly eyes followed us hopefully everywhere. There had been great excitement in the village that morning. An Indian prince who was a Christian had visited the church, had left a gift for the priests, had made purchases in all the little shops—his taper had been lighted by the holy fire.

We were just about to go back to our carriage when, turning the corner abruptly, we were face to face with the young Britisher and his friend who had stood on the wall with us in the sunset the night before. He was pointing out over the hills. We smiled our recognition and asked if we too might hear of the coming of the army to Bethlehem.

“There is not much to tell,” he said, in the way of those who have risked all in battle. He told us a little about the difficulty of the fighting in the Judean Hills, the gigantic task of feeding the army and supplying it with water, the intense sufferings of the men in the cold drizzling rain and the chilling wind on the hills. Wrapping our own coats tightly about us, we could understand something of what they must have endured lying out on the bare unprotected hillsides as they did those nights before the city of Jerusalem was captured. After a moment he pointed out to us the hill Beit Jabor two miles northwest of Bethlehem won by the Welsh Division troops and opening the door for the entrance into Bethlehem, showed us the great house just south of Bethlehem where the Turks had seven mountain guns turned upon the road over which the troops must pass. But a thick heavy impenetrable fog settled down and, taking the risk, the heavy guns of the British passed up the road within easy reach of the enemy had they known. “Whenever a fog settled down like that, to our advantage, the boys would say, ‘the Lord sent a great fog,’ or ‘the Lord hath covered the moon with a cloud’; but when rain or moonlight favored the enemy they said nothing.” He smiled. “The war is over,” he said, “yet it seems as if at any moment this silence might be interrupted by the booming of a gun.” “God forbid!” said our guide fervently. “We have had enough of guns.” We echoed his words heartily as we said a warm word of appreciation of what British arms had done and went back to our carriage.

Two miles or more outside the village we looked down upon the place of Rachel’s tomb. There have been few more beautiful stories of devoted service for love than that of Jacob who had “loved Rachel” and laid her there with a breaking heart. The simple, homely record of the joys and sorrows of every-day life written in the Book that is so full of human interest seems very real indeed as one looks into the faces of men and women about him, almost any one of whom might have played the part of hero or heroine without change of costume on a stage with scenery set. A little further down the long hill we stopped while the guide pointed to the place where the shepherds had watched their flocks. It was a plain lying close between the higher hills. Even on a chilly night it would be a sheltered spot and, huddled dose together with the fire blazing near and the watchman at the gate of the fold, shepherds and sheep would be safe and warm. So they lay that night when the dark sky was suddenly flooded with light and voices sang over the awestruck hills of Judea.

We looked back at the little spot on the hill that was Bethlehem, where that night was born the baby who turned the world upside down—the baby who inspired the world’s best art, its finest literature, its greatest music,—there in that little town with its stone houses, its irregular streets, its simple people struggling with poverty! There was Bethlehem, the city of David, the shepherd boy of the hills, strongest and best of all the sons of Jesse, born to be a king and through his long line of descendants at last to give to the world the King of kings.

When we stopped at the desk for our keys and to ask for a fire in the little square stove in our room the clerk, in hesitating, careful English, said, “You have found it cold out on the hills. You have seen Bethlehem. It is a small place, Bethlehem. There is little there that a man may do. Many travelers are disappointed by Bethlehem.”

“That depends upon how much one sees when he looks at Bethlehem,” I thought. For me it held no disappointment.

That night in the great hall, around the stove that could not warm it, men talked of the future of Palestine. A good friend, who understood many languages and spoke Arabic fluently, interpreted much of the talk for us. The present population of Palestine, Jews, Christians and Mohammedans, is not even a million! Jews and Christians together number perhaps less than one-third. The Mohammedans make up most of the population and are found in every city and village. Arabic is the language of the people, but in Jerusalem and in Jaffa most European languages are freely spoken. The people who live in the towns are called Madaniyeh, the villagers are the Fellaheen, and those who live in tents, whom we called Bedouin, are Arabs. Despite its rocky, unpromising hillsides and its deserts, Palestine is an agricultural country and that must be its future, the men told each other. Wheat and barley, maize and lentils, figs, watermelons, grapes, pomegranates, mulberries, apricots, tomatoes, oranges, and olives could be easily raised. We heard glowing descriptions of the Jaffa oranges and some sent later to our room fulfilled all that had been said of them. There was much talk of the day when the cultivation of raisins and the manufacture of olive oil would make men rich; talk of the bananas that could be made to grow in large quantities at Jericho and of the date palms that would make Gaza prosper once more. There must be new plows, new machinery of many sorts. They talked of the Zionist movement, but the talk was cut short by an Arab who would not hear of it and, as some faces darkened and voices grew louder, our friend rose and took us to our room. Sometimes in these days a friendly talk about Palestine’s future ends in hot words and even blows. The Arab does not want Palestine to be passed over into the hands of the Jews. Many of the Jerusalem Jews express no pleasure whatever over an influx of their brothers from many lands. The problems of Palestine today are very grave and only great wisdom, unselfishness and patience will solve them.

After trying in vain to warm ourselves over our small wood stove we put on our heavy coats and stepped out upon our little balcony. There was no moon. Save for a light over the Jaffa gate and soft rays from the windows of our hotel, Jerusalem was dark. The narrow little street at our left was black. The stars were clear, sparkling, very near. One star seemed larger and brighter than all the rest. As if unconscious of my presence my friend sang softly:

We hurried to our beds with their gay colored hangings and lay buried under blankets and rugs for warmth. For a long time, gazing out into the darkness, I could see the star.

O little town of Bethlehem! Small indeed—but spreading over all the earth. Only a few days before in America millions of children had heard its story, hugged their precious gifts, and thought of the angels and the shepherds. Thousands of parents, forgetting the pressure of dull gray days, filled with problems of food, clothing and shelter had smiled upon their own children and thought tenderly of the Child, and many men and women without a child to love remembered the days of their own childhood and greeted each other with “Merry Christmas.” Small indeed—but I had heard the children of Japan with beaming faces sing its story; I had heard the youth of China with strong, beautifully serious faces tell of white gifts to be given in the name of the Child who found His way into the world out there on the hilltop of Judea; in India I had heard the story told by a girl whose face shone in the telling, as rows and rows of little dark faces looked up at her. I knew that in the sands of African deserts, in the snows of Arctic lands, in the farthermost islands of the sea, they had heard of Bethlehem. A long line of familiar words surged through my mind—democracy, freedom, liberty, justice for all, the brotherhood of man, love—as women may say it in Christian lands: ... how many of them were also born with Him that night in Bethlehem!

No, “thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a ruler ... and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

The wounded, hungry, puzzled world—the memory of the sufferings I had looked upon pressed hard upon me. I closed my eyes to pray that men may have the courage so to love and the faith so to act that the Prince may soon come into the possession of His kingdom.

When I opened my eyes, low over the hills against the blackness of the sky the star was still shining.