The Bethlehem Keeper
Amos K. Wells
What could be done? The Inn was full of folk: His Honor Marcus Lucius, and his scribes who made
the census; honorable men from farthest Galilee came hitherward to be enrolled. High ladies and
their lords; the rich, the rabbis, such a noble thing as Bethlehem had not seen before, and may not
see again.
And there they were, close herded with their servants, till the inn was like a hive at swarming time,
and I was fairly crazed among them.
That they were so important--just the two--no servants, just a workman sort of man, leading a
donkey, and his wife thereon, drooping and pale. I saw them not myself. My servants must have
driven them away. But had I seen them, how was I to know'.'
Were inns to welcome stragglers, up and down in all our towns from Beersheba to Dan, till He
should come? And how were men to know? 'There was a sign, they say, a heavenly light
resplendent; but I had no time for stars. And there were songs of angels in the air out on the hills. But
how was I to hear amid the thousand clamors of an inn?
Of course, had I known then who they were, and who was He that should be born that night--for
now I learn that they will make Him King, a second David who will ransom us from these Philistine
Romans. Who but He that feeds an army with a loaf of bread, and if the soldier falls He touches him,
and up he leaps uninjured! Had I known, I would have turned the whole inn upside down--His
Honor Marcus Lucius, and the rest, and sent them all to stables--had I known.
So you have seen Him, stranger, and perhaps again will see Him. Please say for me I did not know;
and if He comes again, as He will surely come, with retinue and banners, and an army, tell my Lord
that all my inn is His, to make amends.
Alas, alas! to miss a chance like that! This inn that might be chief among them all, this birthplace of
Messiah-had I known !