ST. LUKE II. 7 13
founded, and goes on with her preparations. When all is ready, a knock is heard at the door, and a poor woman with an infant at her breast begs the charity of a night's lodging. Eager Heart, sad and disappointed, yet feeling that she cannot refuse such a request, gives up to the distressed wayfarers the room which she had prepared for the king ; and then goes forth into the night in the hopes of meeting him and at least expressing her goodwill to have entertained him had it been possible. On her way she meets a company of shepherds, who tell her they have seen a vision of angels, who have assured them that the king has already come, and is in the village. And as they return, they are joined by another pilgrim band, of eastern princes, who are making their way, guided by a heavenly light, to pay their homage to their sovereign lord. Needless to say, it is to the cottage of Eager Heart herself that they are guided. The infant is Himself the King, and the homeless woman is the Queen Mother.^
4. The world will find room for Him at last. Has it not found room for Him already ? Has He not made room for Himself — He for whom the inn of Bethlehem had none ? Through half the world men remember continually that coming. Amid the trivial associations of each Christmas, amid the kindlier thoughts which are native to the time, there is not wholly lost the sense of Him who in His greatness made these days solemn and sweet and grand, who made their kindlier thoughts become more natural. God, they remember, bowed Himself to become man for man's redemption. And He who dwelt among them in more than common lowliness now fills the thoughts and inspires the hopes of thousands who find through Him surer foothold for life, and through Him can face death.
If Little Hettie had a model village, and she never tired of setting it up.
" What kind of a town is that, Hettie ? " asked her father.
" 0, a Christian town," Hettie answered, quickly.
" Suppose we make it a heathen town," her father suggested. " What must we take out ? "
" The church," said Hettie, taking it to one side.
" Is that all ? "
" I suppose so."
" No, indeed," her father said. " The public school must go. Take the public library out also."
^ H. Lucas, At tj\^ Parting of the Ways, 79.^
14 NO ROOM
" Anything else ? " Hettie asked, sadly,
" Isn't that a hospital over there ? "
" But, father, don't they have hospitals ? "
" Not in heathen countries. It was Christ who taught us to care for the sick and the old."
" Then I must take out the Old Ladies' Home," said Hettie, very soberly.
" Yes, and that Orphans' Home at the other end of the town."
" Why, father," Hettie exclaimed, " then there's not one good thing left ! I would not live in such a town for anything."
Does having room for Jesus make so much difference ? ^
III.
No KooM IN OUR Lives.
The difficulty with us to-day is just what it was when Christ trod this earth ; and the real reason why He means so little to many of us is that there is no room for Him in our lives.
The only place in which He can make His home to-day is the inn of the soul, the secret rooms of the personal life. We some- times sing, in one of the most tender and gracious of our hymns, " 0 make our hearts Thy dwelling-place," and that is just what the Lord is willing and waiting to do. " 0 make our hearts Thine inn ! " But when He moves towards us He finds the inn already thronged.
^ You may talk as you please about the things that have " put you off," as we say, and made you less keen about religion and its claims than you once were — the tendency of the Higher Criti- cism, or the results of the comparative study of religions, or the New Theology, or the Athanasian Creed, or the futility of our ordinary church-life, or the worldliness of professing Christians, or the divisions of Christendom. All these things have some im- portance ; but you know perfectly well, and it has recently been set before us with extraordinary force and vigour, that if the Lord Jesus Christ were but to appear in the smoking-room one day when religious questions were being discussed so freely, all these things would dwindle into absolute insignificance, and the one vital question for you and for me would be whether we really loved Him enough to take up His cross and live out our lives manfully for His sake. Well, you may not interview Him in the
1 A. P. Hodgson, Thoughts for the King's Children, 220,
ST. LUKE II. 7 15
smoking-room, but you can see Him just as clearly as ever you could if you will only give yourself a chance. He is as near as ever He was, as dear as ever He was, and the one question is whether we will give ourselves the chance of seeing Him.^