Five hundred years before, when the strong young men of Bethlehem had been sent away into Babylonian exile, the loud wailing from bereaved, heart-broken homes had recalled to Jeremiah that other sad mother buried there by the lonely roadside. So now again, the awful outrage, perpetrated almost within sight of that venerable tomb, seems to be linked across the long centuries with the first Bethlehem grief; and once more, in the words of the Lamenting Prophet, there is “Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; And she would not be comforted, Because they are not.” The Blossoms of Martyrdom—so a fourth century poet calls these little ones who were the first of all to suffer death for Christ’s sake. And in that countless throng of those who “have come out of great tribulation” there must surely stand in the foremost rank the little band of Bethlehem children whose blood was shed because an infant Saviour had been born into an unwelcoming world. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” [Illustration: _THE STORY OF THE STABLE_] VIII THE STORY OF THE STABLE Between the years 1480 and 1483, Brother Felix Fabri, a learned German monk of Ulm, made two voyages to Palestine, during the course of which he collected information of all sorts about the holy places, which he later published in a large and important book. Some of his statements about Bethlehem are very accurate. Others do not strike us as quite so convincing. According to these stories told by Brother Felix, Boaz inherited from his father Salmon, who had married Rahab of Jericho, a large mansion built at the very edge of Bethlehem, so that part of the house projected outside the town wall. In the rock underneath the main building was a natural grotto which was used as a cellar, and also as a dwelling room during the hot months. The house passed in due time into the possession of Boaz’ grandson Jesse, whose son David was born in the lower room. After David became king, however, the family removed to Jerusalem, the deserted homestead gradually came into a state of disrepair, and finally the part in the rock was used as a public stable. This degradation of the once splendid mansion was permitted by Providence, so that at last the great Son of David might be born amid humble surroundings, and yet in the very place where His famous ancestor first saw the light. After our Lord’s Ascension, His mother lived for fourteen years, dwelling in Jerusalem, whence every month she and her friends made a pious pilgrimage to Bethlehem, that they might worship at the cave of the Saviour’s birth. This so enraged the Jews that finally they defiled the stable and blocked up its entrance with stones.