“The carols of Bethlehem Center”
No glad tidings would have met a sinner’s wintry heart one
Christmas morning were it not for voices in the snow; those voices were straight
from Him who gave the angels the song “On earth peace, good will to men.”
At the end of the winter term in Gertrude Windsor’s junior
year of college, the doctor had prescribed a year of rest for her, and she had
come to find it in the quiet of Bethlehem Center.
Soon Gertrude was asked to take on a Sunday School class at
the church. She hesitated, but the wistful face of one boy named Harry decided
her.
Not until school was over, however, did she learn the reason
of another student’s, little Phil’s, conscious silence; when she met him with
his father on the street, she tried to atone for her former ignorance.
“Are you Phil’s father?” she asked.
Tim Shartow, believed by some to regard neither God, man,
nor the devil, grew strangely embarrassed.
“Yes’m,” he answered.
“I am to be his Sunday school teacher,” she went on, “and of
course I want to know the fathers and mothers of my boys. I hope Phil can come
regularly. We are going to have some very interesting lessons.”
“I guess he can come,” answered his father. “It’s a better
place for him than on the street, anyway.”
Gertrude smiled, and in that meeting won Phil’s lifelong
regard and that of his father—for after that, Tim Shartow felt that he had two
friends in Bethlehem Center of whom he need not be ashamed.
Shartow’s other friend was James McKenzie, the pastor. The (qualified)
respect which they felt for each other dated from their first meeting, when Mr.
McKenzie had walked into the saloon and asked to tack up some adverts for his
revival services.
“I guess you can,” the proprietor had answered.
“We should be very glad,
Mr. Shartow,” the pastor had told him, “If you would attend some of the
meetings.”
“It’ll be a cold day when I do,” answered the saloonkeeper.
Mr. McKenzie did not reply.
“The worst enemies I’ve got are in that church,” added Tim.
A smile lit up the pastor’s earnest face. “No, Mr. Shartow,”
he said, “you’re wrong. They don’t like your business—I don’t like
your business—but you haven’t an enemy in our church. And I want to tell you
now”—he was looking straight into the eyes of the man to whom he spoke—“that
every night, as I pray that God will remove this saloon, I shall pray that He
will bring you to know my Savior. And if ever you need help that I can give, I
want you to feel free to come to me. We are travelling different roads, Mr.
Shartow, but we are not enemies; we are friends.”
And the pastor departed, leaving the saloonkeeper “that
shook up” that he may never have fully regained his former attitude toward
“them church folks.”
Gertrude’s class was joined by more, and after she announced
the mid-week meetings as a reward for full attendance, not one absence occurred
for thirteen weeks.
It had the look of a miracle that the class for whom no
teacher could be found was as clay in the hands of the potter. There was
nothing Gertrude could not do with them. And they sang with a wild abandon that
was exhilarating to hear. Even Harry, who held the note on which his voice
first fastened, never failed to sing; it spoke volumes for the spirit of the
school and the devotion to the chorister.
The boys did much for Gertrude, too. As health and strength returned,
and every pulse beat brought the returning joy of life, she often felt that all
her work for that class had been repaid a hundredfold.
One mid-August afternoon, there came the first thoughts of
the carols. Most of the boys were with her, and looking down upon a pasture
where sheep were feeding, little Phil began the shepherd psalm that she had
taught them—
“The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want;
He makes me down to lie”—
and, the other boys joining, they sang through to the end.
It was beautiful. She had never realized that they could
sing so well, and, suddenly, as she listened, a plan came into her mind, and
she proposed it then and there. The boys were jubilant. For a half-hour they
discussed details, and then, “all seated on the ground,” she taught them the
beginning of “While shepherds watched their flocks by night.”
That was the first of many rehearsals. Only Harry’s voice
was defective, but that difficulty vanished when it was learned that his
fondest ambition was satisfied by striking the tuning-fork.
Six songs they learned by heart. The last but best, because
it seemed especially made for them, began:
“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.”
And so at length came Christmas Eve. In Bethlehem Center,
preparations for early rising had been made and an agreement that not one
present should be looked at until after the boys’ return.
After the first tinkle of the alarm clock, Gertrude was quickly
out into the keen morning air. The stars were bright overhead, and there was no
light in the east, but most of the boys were already waiting.
Mr. McKenzie’s was the first stop; beneath the study windows,
like one, there rose to greet the dawning of another Christmas day those clear
young voices:
“Hark! the herald angels sing,
‘Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.’ ”
When, after the “Amen”, the pastor started to open a window,
the boys were too quick for him. There was a volley of “Merry Christmas,” and
his answer reached only the rearguard tumbling over the picket fence.
Beneath the bare apple tree boughs in Harold Thornton’s
yard, “We Three Kings of Orient Are” was sounded out.
Then came tears into the eyes of Mrs. Martin as, watching
beside her sick child, she heard again the story of the Babe, “away in a
manger, no crib for His bed.” Old Uncle King forgot for a moment his vexing
troubles as he listened to the admonition to “rest beside the weary road, and
hear the angels sing!” Mrs. Fenny cried, as sick people will, when she
heard the boys reiterate the sweet, triumphant notes.
So from house to house the singers went, pausing at one
because of sickness, at another because those within were lonely, at some for
love, as they had serenaded the pastor and the superintendent, and bringing to
each some new joy.
The stars were fading out, and they had started to return. Opposite
them was the saloon, with its gaudy gilt sign, “Tim’s Place.” Little Phil was
behind Gertrude, and as they passed that building—it was home to him—his hand
just touched her sleeve.
“Do you think,” he whispered, and she could see the quiver
of his chin as he spoke—“Do you suppose—we could sing one for m’ father?”
Tears filled Gertrude’s eyes.
“Why, surely,” she answered. “Which one do you think he
would like best?”
Phil had shrunk behind her, and beneath the gaze of the
other boys his eyes were those of a little hunted animal at bay. “Bethlehem,”
he said, huskily.
And when Harry had struck the tuning-fork, they began to
sing:
“O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.”
The twenty-fourth had been a good day for business in Tim
Shartow’s place. But now, in the quiet of the early morning, as he sat alone,
the reaction had come. He remembered how Rob MacFlynn had had too much, and
gone home maudlin to the wife who had toiled all day at the wash tub. He
thought of the fight Joe Frier and Tom Stacey had had. And these things
disgusted him. He did not drink much himself; he despised a drunkard. There was
little Phil, too—“the saloonkeeper’s boy”—and that cut deep. Wouldn’t it pay
better, in the long run—and then the music floated softly in.
He did not hear the words at first, but he had a good ear—it
was the singing that had brought him, as a boy, into the beer-gardens—and,
stepping to the window, he listened, all unseen by those without. There the
words reached him:
“How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is giv’n!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive Him”—
and until they sang the “Amen”, Tim Shartow never stirred
from the window.
Beside his study fire, James McKenzie was surprised by a
knock at the door later that day.
“Good evening, Mr. Shartow,” he said. “Won’t you come in?”
The face of his visitor was tense and haggard, for the
struggle had lasted the whole day long.
“I’ve come for help,” he answered, shortly. “I guess it’s
the kind you can give, all right.”
For a moment the pastor searched his face. “God bless you!”
he exclaimed. “Come in, come in.”
And so was wrought again, on the day ushered in by the
singing of carols, the ever new miracle of Christmas—for God’s gift to men had
again been accepted, and into another heart made meek and ready to receive Him
the dear Christ had entered.
—Abridged; see “The Carols of Bethlehem Center,”
Stories worth re-reading.