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The Most Wonderful Man in the
History of the World
In the Christmas Woman's Home Companion
appears an extraordinary account of the birth
of Christ, -written by Washington Gladden. The
story is told with completeness and reality just
as one might relate the story of the "birth of Lin
coln or any other great man.
Joseph and Mary were young people who lived
in Nazareth of Galilee which is sixty miles north
of Bethlehem. They had to go to Bethlehem
because it was the city in which their family
belonged and the Roman emperor who was
making a great census in his empire required
every family to be enrolled in its native place.
So Joseph and Mary had come, in the middle
of the winter, to tbis old town of Bethlehem. It
was a long journey for those days and those '
roads, far more wearisome than a trip to Den
ver or Minneapolis would bo for people on the
Hudson ot tbe Connecticut. If they traveled
by the principal road, as doubtless they did,
we know exactly the route they followed
across the great plain of Esdraelon, over the
mountains of Samaria and the hill country of
Judea to tbe great city of Jerusalem, then
southward about six miles, from that city of
Bethlehem.
Now let Dr. Gladden proceed with his narra
tive: "Whether Joseph or Mary had ever visited
Bethlehem before, we do not know.
"The first thing to do was to find a place
where they could abide in Bethlehem, and this
was not an easy task. The little town seems
to have been full of people who bad come per
haps upon the same errand that brought them.
You can imagine how it would be if all the
descendants of all the families that once lived in
one of the old New England hill towns in
Litchfield, say, or Deerfield, or Leominster if
all the descendants of all these families in all
parts of the country were ordered to go back
thero and register.
"So it was at Bethlehem. Very little depen
dence was placed on inns or hotels by travelers
in those days. There were few places of public
entertainment. Every private family gladly re
ceived and kindly cared for such pilgrims as
chanced to pass through their neighborhood.
"But no matter how hospitable men may be,
when their houses are full to overflowing they
can take no more guests, and this was the
condition in which Joseph and Mary found the
homes in Bethlehem. To the inn they made
their way; but the inn was simply a shelter
a shed enclosing a court, with no furniture and
no other provision for the comfort of the
traveler than the stone walls and the roof which
protected him from the storm. Here upon the
bare floor he could spread his rugs for sleep;
here ho could partake of the food that he had
brought in his haversack; and his beast could
be left secure in the court within tbe building.
"Such were the inns, or khans, of the East
when Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem.
But even such cold comfort as this was not for
them. This bare shelter was so crowded that
there was no room for them then. The only
place they could find was in the stable, and this,
as seems probable, was a kind of cave or excava
tion in the side of the rock, near the inn.
"It has been believed from the earliest day
that the place where Jesus was horn was a cave
under a sheltering rock. This story was cur
rent among His followers not a hundred years
after His death, and there is no reason to doubt
its truth. It was perhaps some such place as
the pioneers In Minnesota and Dakota used to
call a 'dugout a shelter, partly underground,
whore man and beast together were sometimes
forced to find protection from the wintry cold.
This was the best entertainment Joseph and
Mary could find in Bethlehem; and here it was
that the wonderful Babe was born, and found
His cradle in a manger.
"Thus it was that the life which was and Is
the Light of Men began here on the earth.
Doubtless this was the greatest moment in the
world's history. Could anyone who looked on
this Babe as He lay in the manger have dreamed
of the place Ho would fill, of the changes He
would bring, of the kingdom He -would establish
in the world? Could anyone there have guessed
that nineteen centuries from that day five hun
dred millions of the human raco would be call
ing themselves by His name, and more than
half the earth's population would be reckoning
their years from the day of His birth; that
every seventh day millions on millions of human
voices would be lifted up in song to Him in
churches and Sunday schools and missions all
round the world; that the noblest music the
world ever would hear would be music celehrat
ing the birth, the life, and the death of this
little Babe; that the highest and purest art of
all time would be that in which the story -was
told of tbe young Child and His mother; that
the noblest architecture the world would ever
see would be tbat which prepared a shrine for
tbe worship of this Babe of Bethlehem; that
His birthday would be kept all over the world
as a day for giving gifts and sharing pleasures,
and that it would be the happiest day of all the
days of the whole round year?
"No; none of us could have conceived of such
a history as that to whose beginnings we look
back on Christmas Day. There has been no
parallel to it in the annals of the centuries.
The facts which I have recited give some indi
cation of the place that He has won in the
thought and affection of mankind; hut there ,.
are those of us who believe that the greatness
of His dominion is yet to be achieved; for it is
only within a generation that the real nature of
His kingdom has begun to take possession of
American thought. The world is now at last
beginning to see what Christianity means; that
it really proposes to shape the whole of human
society here and now according to its law of
good will; that it calls us to supplant strife by
co-operation, and suspicion by sympathy; to
make the spirit of Christmas the law of every
day in the year. It has taken the world a long,
long time to get hold of the real meaning of
Christ's ife and teachings and death, but it
begins to dawn upon us in these first years of
the twentieth century; and when the Christian
church learns to put the emphasis where it be
longs, His kingdom will come, and His will be
done in earth as in heaven." Nashville Demo-
fTVL
DETERIORATION UNDER MONOPOLY
The advocates of the trust system have per
sistently claimed that efficiency and monopoly
go hand in Tiand, but a non-partisan student of
the trust question knows that monopoly is main
tained at the expense of efficiency. Louis D.
BrandeiB tells the people of Boston that monopo
ly is responsible for New England's wretched
railway service. In a statement recently issued,
Mr. Brandeis says:
"President Mellen, of the New Haven line can
properly be held responsible for many grave de
fects in management, but the existing evils are
not due to the errors or omissions of one man.
These evils are due to the adoption by the com
pany of a policy inevitably prejudicial to the
interests both of the commonwealth and of the
company itself the fatal policy of monopoly
"We are reaping now merely the inevitable
fruits of that monopoly. Mr. Mellen's energy
and restlessness have no doubt accelerated the
process of the relative deterioration in New
England transportation, and no doubt others
might have exhibited more graciousness and
patience in action, but no person filling his po
sition could have prevented the inevitable evil
'consequences of the suppression of substantially
all competition in transportation in New Eng
land." Mr. Brandeis criticised the stockholders who
"supinely acquiesced in the action of their direc
tors," who supported the monopolistic policy
which, he alleged, had been the real source of
trouble and friction with the public. Then he
pointed out what he said had been the result of
that monopoly of transportation.
"Every New Englander must be conscious of
the great deterioration in transportation ser
vice, to which we had been subjected during the
last few years the period in which in many
other parts of the country transportation ser
vice has improved, as in other activities we have
properly improved during the past decade.
"The omnipresent fact today is increasing cost
of living. Our transportation situation is a
partial explanation of this increase in the cost
of living.
"When the nronosals of the mm-por wnro wn,i
we used to hear much about improvements ttiat
were coming; about economics have resulted.
On the contrary every change has tended to shift
VOLUME 12, NUMBER 49
the burden from tho railroad and increase the
burden of the community.
"What the railroad has called introducing
economies has been merely curtailing of ser
vice, and at the same time there have been
important increases in railroad fares and in
rates. Just a year after the legislature, on
Governor Draper's recommendations, passed the
railroad holding company act, and legalized the
New Haven'B control of the Boston pnd Maine
both systems raised our passenger rates, add
ing more than $1,500,000 to their revenue, and
adding just that much' -to the burden of the
traveling public and during this same period
there have been many increases of freight
rates.
"But the burden of the people has not bn
so much from increased fares and rates as much
diminished service. They yielded to the New
Haven's demand for the control of the Boston
and Maine under the promise that it would
result in greatly improved service, and, instead
of improvement, has come constant deteriora
tion. A little over a year ago we heard of the
appointment by the New Haven of an efficiency
committee to go over the Boston and Maine
lines. The efficiency committee proved to be
an ax committee for its main work was to re
duce the number of employes and to cut down
expenses, although at that time, as since, the
business on the road has been constantly in
creasing. "Almost immediately after the New Haven
took control of the management of the Bcston
and Maine, Vice President Barr urged upon the
superintendents economies, but that was not
enough. This so-called efficiency committee,
instead of improving service, was directed to cut
off every expense, to cut out 'everything that
can be dispensed with that means money,' and
not to be 'deterred by anything unless satisfied
that the service would be seriously interfered
with.'
"It was not c question of giving good service,
but a question of cutting down expenses. Men
were discharged, trains were taken off, and the
threat was held over those remaining in the em
ploy of the railroad company that unless the
operating expenses were reduced 'a horrible
cut in all salaries' would result.
"The huge expenditures, made by the New
Haven system in purchasing at exorbitant prices
railroads, trolleys and steamships to suppress
competition have so weakened the financial con
dition of the New Haven that, on the one hand
it has felt itself unable to provide the money
required by a rapidly growing business, and,
on the other hand, it has, in its efforts to
economize, denied to the public that service to
which it is entitled, and by reducing its operat
ing force, while its business was increasing, has
put upon its employes a strain which some re
cent wrecks show that they were unable to bear.
"However averse we may be to government
- ownership, and whatever disposition may be
made of the Boston and Maine after it has
been acquired by the commonwealth, there now
is no way through which the needed improve
ment in our transportation conditions can be
procured except through the exercise by the
commonwealth of its reserved right to take
away the Boston and Maine from the control
of the New Haven."
IN A NUT SHLL
Here is a sermon in a nutshell, printed in
the Milwaukee Journal: "Yes, I shot her!
Yesterday I was mad; stark, staring mad. I
was filled with whisky. Yesterday I wanted her
to die. Today I want her to live. I hope she
recovers. Yes, I know now that she loved me.
I found it out one minute after I shot her. As
she lay upon the floor she called to me:
" 'Don't Bhoot again. I am going to die now.
Won't you kiss me before I die?'
"I knew then that .she loved me, but tho
whisky In me made me hate her. I kissed her
lips and then I left the house. My mind is in a
haze as to the rest." Statement of Hugo Bartelt
to Capt. John T. Sullivan.
Although Mrs. Bartelt was somewhat im
proved, her condition was still critical, and
little hope was entertained for her recovery.
NOT YET
The Jacksonville (Pla. Times-Union "spins
a web, Infernally fine," when it says: "Ref
erence to Woodrow Wilson as president-elect is
premature. He Is not yet president-elect. He
has only been nominated by tlie people for elec
tion by the electoral college.' ,
Well, 'he Is agreat deal more "president-elect
than the detnocrats have had for some time, so
they 'will 'bd' pardoned for' jie'irig a bit premature.
mn
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