[Illustration: Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, said to enclose the birthplace of the Saviour] [Illustration: The shepherds came to the stable, opened the door and found just what the angel said they would see, a tiny babe lying in the manger.] But the Romans who were ruling the world at that time chose a plan for making this great list which would give themselves the least trouble, even though it gave to the people under them much more trouble, and compelled them to make long journeys. Instead of appointing in each place an officer to take the names of the people at the places where they were living, they made a law that every family must go to the city or town from which they or their fathers had come, and there give their names to the officers who were making the roll of the people. Those who were living in Jerusalem, and had come from Shechem or Joppa or Cæsarea, must journey to one of these places and there make their report; those who were living in Nazareth and had come, or their parents before them had come, from any other place, must go to their home-town, however far it might be, and in that place be enrolled or written upon the list of names. There is no reason to suppose that Mary, although herself sprung from the family of David, was compelled to make this journey to Bethlehem with her husband. The Roman laws took very little notice of women, unless they were rich women who could be taxed. Joseph could go alone to Bethlehem, and there have both their names written upon the list. But at once a thought came to Mary, and she said to her husband: "You shall not make the journey to Bethlehem alone. I will go with you." We are not told why the young wife was resolved to go with her husband on the long journey, but the reason may have been this: Mary knew that she was to have a son, and the time for his coming was now near at hand. She knew, too, that her child should be the Son of David and the King of Israel, that he was to sit on David's throne. She wished him to be born, not in the village of Nazareth in Galilee, but in David's own town of Bethlehem. He was to spring from the royal line, and she was willing to endure a hard, trying journey, and even to suffer, that her son might come from the royal city where David lived. Mary had read the books of the Old Testament, and she knew that in those books it had been written by the prophets, to whom God had spoken, that this king, whom they called Messiah and Christ, should be born in Bethlehem. These were the reasons that made Mary decide so quickly to go with her husband on his journey to Bethlehem, the city of their fathers.