Wondrous Sights in Egypt

       On the Mediterranean steamer coming from Athens to Alexandria, I met the eminent scholar and theologian, Doctor Lansing, who for thirty-five years has been a resident of Cairo, and he told me that he had been all over the road that the three fugitives took from Bethlehem to Egypt. He says it is a desert way and that the forced journey of the infant Christ must have been a terrible journey. Going up from Egypt, Doctor Lansing met people from Bethlehem, their tongues swollen and hanging out from the inflammation of thirst, and although his party had but one goat skin of water left, and that was important for themselves, he was so moved with the spectacle of thirst in these poor pilgrims that, though it excited the indignation of his fellow travelers, he gave water to the strangers. Over this dreadful route Joseph and Mary started for this land of Egypt. No time to make much preparation. Herod was after them, and what were these peasants before an irate king? Joseph, the husband and father, one night sprang up from his mattress in great alarm, the beads of sweat on his forehead, and his whole frame quaking. He had dreamed of massacres of his wife and babe. They must be off that night, right away. Mary put up a few things hastily, and Joseph brought to the door the beast of burden, and helped his wife and child to mount. Why, those loaves of bread are not enough, those bottles of water will not last for such a long way. But there is no time to get anything more. Out and on. Good-bye to the dear home they expect never again to see. Their hearts break. It does not need that ours be a big house in order to make us sorry to leave it. Over the hills and down through the deep gorge they urge their way. By Hebron, by Gaza, through hot sand, under a blistering sun, the babe crying, the mother faint, the father exhausted. How slowly the days and weeks pass. Will the weary three ever reach the banks of the Nile? Will they ever see Cairo? Will the desert ever end? When at last they cross the line beyond which old Herod has no right to pursue, their joy is unbounded. Free at last. Let them dismount and rest. Now they resume their way with less anxiety. They will find a place somewhere for shelter and the earning of their bread. Here they are at Cairo, Egypt. They wind through the crooked streets which are about ten feet wide, and enter the humble house where I have been to-day. It is nine steps down from the level of the street. It is such a place as  no reader of this book would like to dwell in. I measured the room and found it twenty feet long, and seven and a half feet high. There are three shelvings of rock, one of which I think was the cradle of our Lord. There is no window, and all the light must have come from lantern or candle. King of heaven to live in!

• Do You Trust Me? - The Story of Joseph and Mary by Richard L. Strauss 
• Why did King Herod try to kill Jesus shortly after His birth? 
• When did Jesus come to Nazareth after his birth?

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