Poor Rachel! Supplanted in her husband's love; denied long the natural heritage of woman; paying the supreme price at last, only to be left here by the wayside alone, outside the family tomb. All the others are gathered at Hebron in the Field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought from the children of Heth for Sarah's burial-place. Jacob, at the very last, made his sons swear that they would bury him at Hebron with the others. He remembered Rachel in her lonely grave, and spoke of her there, but did not ask that he be taken to lie by her side, or that she be laid with the others. He died as he had lived--self-seeking, unsympathetic--a commonplace old man.
Just outside of Bethlehem we were welcomed by a crowd of little baksheesh girls, of a better look and distinctly of a better way than the Jerusalem type. They ran along with the carriage and began a chant which, behold, was German, at least Germanesque:
"Oh, du Fröliche! Oh, du Heilege! Baksheesh! Baksheesh!"
I suppose "Oh, thou happy one; Oh, thou holy one," would be about the translation, with the wailing refrain at the end. I think we gave them something. I hope so; they are after us always, and we either give them or we don't, without much discrimination. You can't discriminate. They are all wretched and miserably needy. You give to get rid of them, or when pity clutches a little fiercer than usual at your heart.
[Illustration: A CAMEL TRAIN LED THE WAY THROUGH THE GATES]
So we were at the gates of Bethlehem--the little town whose name is familiar at the firesides of more than half the world--a name that always brings with it a feeling of bright stars and dim fields:
"Where shepherds watched their flocks by night All seated on the ground,"
and of angel voices singing peace and goodwill. A camel-train led the way through the gates.
I suppose the city itself is not unlike Jerusalem in its general character, only somewhat cleaner, and less extensive. We went immediately to the place of the nativity, but before we could get to it we were seized and dragged and almost compelled to buy some of the mother-of-pearl beads and fancy things that are made just across the way. We escaped into the Church of the Nativity at last--an old, old church, desolate and neglected in its aspect, though sufficiently occupied with chanting and droning and candle-bearing acolytes. Yet it is better--oh, much better--than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and it has a legitimate excuse. If Christ was born in a Bethlehem manger, as the gospel records, it is probable that He was born here. There are many reasons for believing that the grotto below this church was used as the inn stables in that time, and that the brief life which has laid its tender loveliness on so many lives had its beginning here.