The event that gave origin to our Christmas holiday occurred nearly two thousand years ago in Bethlehem of Judea; and it may be a new idea to us to try to think of the weather that prevailed at that time and the character of the Christmas Day that land may have this year. We know that it was not cold and cloudy on that eventful night so long ago, for the shepherds were feeding their flocks upon the hillsides and the Wise Men of the East beheld a star and followed it. The star shone brightly from the time they left Herod until they reached the place where the Infant lay. We may therefore judge that this part of their journey was made under a clear sky and that the same conditions prevailed at Bethlehem. Weather observations made at Jerusalem, a few miles from Bethlehem, during modern times, show that during December there are less than fourteen cloudy days on the average. The prevailing winds are from the Mediterranean Sea, only thirty miles to the west of Bethlehem, and therefore rarely does the temperature exceed 65° during the day or fall to freezing at night. While there is evidence that the climate is drier now throughout all of the Holy Land than at the birth of Christ, it is highly probable that when He was born the stars were shining brightly and the hills were green and beautiful and the weather smiling its benediction upon the Son of God. We now will glance at the weather that experience teaches us will probably prevail in some of the principal cities of the world on Christmas Day, and thus have impressed upon us the fact that on any day of the year humanity lives under widely differing weather conditions throughout the world. In our own country we know that Maine is the home of ice, snow, and chilling blasts, while in California and Florida orange blossoms perfume the temperate air. In London Christmas is not always bright and comfortable, for on the average twenty-one days in December are cloudy and the temperature ranges from a few degrees below freezing at night to about 50° during the day.