Luke 2:7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger… Were a man to enter some great cathedral of the old continent, survey the vaulted arches and the golden tracery above, wander among the forests of pillars on which they rest, listen to the music of choirs, and catch the softened light that streams through sainted forms and histories on the windows, observe the company of priests, gorgeously arrayed, chanting, kneeling, crossing themselves, and wheeling in long processions before the great altar loaded with gold and gems; were he to look into the long tiers of side chapels, each a gorgeous temple, with an altar of its own for its princely family, adorned with costliest mosaics, and surrounded, in the niches of the walls, with statues and monumental groups of dead ancestors m the highest forms of art, noting also the living princes at their worship there among their patriarchs and brothers in stone — spectator of a scene so imposing, what but this will his thought be: "Surely the Infant of the manger has at last found room, and come to be entertained among men with a magnificence worthy of His dignity "But if he looks again, and looks a little farther in — far enough in to see the miserable pride of self and power that lurks under this gorgeous show, the mean ideas of Christ, the superstitions held instead of Him, the bigotry, the hatred of the poor, the dismal corruption of life — with how deep a sigh of disappointment will he confess: "Alas, the manger was better and a more royal honour!" (Horace Bushnell, DD.) Parallel Verses KJV: And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. |
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