Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/304

290 And look across the valley to yonder hillside! That gentle slope, which is seen dimly in the pale moonlight, is the field in which, according to tradition, "shepherds were keeping watch over their flock by night," when "the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them." In this matter of localities it is best not to be too precise or too positive. Nor is it necessary to fix the identical spot. The exact point in space matters little, any more than the exact point of time. All we know, and all that we need to know, is that it was somewhere within the circuit of these hills that the shepherds watched; that it was in these skies that they saw the multitude of the heavenly host, and heard the song "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." That is enough to make the very heavens above us more serene, and the stars shine with a softer, tenderer light. We look upward as if we might catch some faint gleam of the angelic wings, or a far-off echo of the angelic voices. How they soared and sang! Never before did the earth hear such harmonies as these, which filled all the depths of air.

At length they ceased, and the vision vanished like a cloud. Higher and higher rose the heavenly host, and farther and farther the strains died away, till once more heaven and earth were still. And yet may it not be that they died away only to the shepherds' ears, while elsewhere they kept sounding on? Perhaps the celestial choir only ascended into a higher atmosphere, and there floated over other mountain tops and other valleys, the waves of sound circling round them till they touched every shore, and all tribes and kindreds of men heard the good tidings of great joy. O Christ, at whose birth the angels sang, will that song ever be heard again in the upper air of this poor world of ours?