strangers to the little town, that “there was no room for them in the inn.” In the rude limestone grotto attached to it as a stable, among the hay and straw spread for the food and rest of the cattle, weary with their day’s journey, far from home, in the midst of strangers, in the chilly winter night—in circumstances so devoid of all earthly comfort or splendour that it is impossible to imagine a humbler nativity—Christ was born.1 Distant but a few miles, on the plateau of the abrupt and singular