United States or Bulgaria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The air was still o'er Bethlehem's plain, As if the great Night held its breath, When Life Eternal came to reign Over a world of Death. The pagan at his midnight board Let fall his brimming cup of gold: He felt the presence of his Lord Before His birth was told. The temples trembled to their base, The idols shuddered as in pain: A priesthood in its power of place Knelt to its gods in vain.
It was a skillful hand which swept the keys that night, for Katy's forte was music, and she played with her whole soul, not the voluntary there before her in printed form, nor any one thing she had ever heard, but taking parts of many things, and mingling them with strains of her own improvising, she filled the house as it had never been filled before, playing a soft, sweet refrain when she thought of Helen, then bursting into louder, fuller tones, when she remembered Bethlehem's child and the song the angels sang, and then as she recalled her own sacrifice since she knelt at the altar a happy bride, the organ notes seemed much like human sobs, now rising to a stormy pitch of passion, wild and uncontrolled, and then dying out as dies the summer wind after a fearful storm.
May the blessing of Bethlehem's purple hills be ever thine." The Bishop turned and paced slowly up the lawn, head bent, hands clasped behind him. The small bare feet made no sound on the turf. But before the Bishop was half-way across the lawn, the stem of a rose was thrust between his fingers. As they closed over it, a gay ripple of laughter sounded behind him, fading fleetly into the distance.
And Helen felt the peace stealing over her as by the register she sat down for a moment ere going to the organ loft where the boy was waiting for her. Not even the remembrance of the dark war cloud hanging over the land disturbed her then, as her thoughts went backward eighteen hundred years to Bethlehem's manger and the little child whose birth the angels sang.
"Like one who from some desert shore Does home's green isles descry, And, vainly longing, gazes o'er The waste of wave and sky, "So, from the desert of my fate, Gaze I across the past; And still upon life's dial-plate The shade is backward cast "I've wandered wide from shore to shore, I've knelt at many a shrine, And bowed me to the rocky floor Where Bethlehem's tapers shine;
Through the window came the noise of people busy at Bethlehem's chief industry, the cutting and polishing of mother-of-pearl for mementoes. The jingling bells of our pack-train, passing the open door, reminded us that our camp was to be pitched miles away on the road to Hebron. We called for the horses and rode on through the town.
"Like one who from some desert shore Does home's green isles descry, And, vainly longing, gazes o'er The waste of wave and sky, "So, from the desert of my fate, Gaze I across the past; And still upon life's dial-plate The shade is backward cast "I've wandered wide from shore to shore, I've knelt at many a shrine, And bowed me to the rocky floor Where Bethlehem's tapers shine;
"He sees the wrecks upon the shore, And everything is drear; The rolling waves around him roar, The angry clouds their torrents pour, His friends are gone forevermore, And he alone is here. "Yet through the gloom of gathering night, A glory from afar Streams ever on his fading sight, With Orient beams that grow more bright, The dawn of heaven's supernal light From Bethlehem's radiant star."
The sight of Alice's swollen eyes and tear-stained face affected Mug, it is true, but even she could not cry until she had coaxed old Uncle Sam to repeat to her, for the twentieth time, the story of Bethlehem's little children slain, by order of the cruel Herod.
The predominant notes of the New Testament are tenderness and ardor, but inwrought with these is a vein of terror and sometimes of fierce wrath. It is like the denunciation in the Old Testament, to which the vision of a future world has added a more lurid hue. "Asia's rancor" has not disappeared, even in the presence of "Bethlehem's heart."
Word Of The Day