She brought forth her firstborn son, and she wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a feeding trough, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Is there a mystery here in that the Savior is laid where weary animals receive their food? Yes, there are some men who have become so brutal through sin, so utterly depraved by their lusts, that to their own consciences everything human like has departed, but even to such the remedies of Jesus, the Great Physician, will apply. We are constantly reading in our papers of men who are called hardened and hopeless, and it is fashionable now to demand that these men should be treated with the utmost severity. Some few years ago all the world went crazy with a counterfeit compassion, crying out that gentleness would reform the brutal thief; now the tide has shifted, and everybody is demanding the abandonment of the present system of compassion. I am no advocate for treating criminals lightly; let their sin bring them a fair share of pain; but if by any means they can be reformed, I pray that we will try. Beware, fellow- citizens, beware of restoring the old idea that men can sin beyond hope of reformation, or you will generate criminals worse than those which now trouble us. 