He first saw the light in a miserable hovel in Kentucky, on a farm consisting of a few barren acres in a dreary neighborhood; his father a typical “poor Southern white,” shiftless and improvident, without ambition for himself or his children, constantly looking for a new piece of land on which he might make a living without much work; his mother, in her youth handsome and bright, grown prematurely coarse in feature an soured in mind by daily toil and care; the whole household squalid, cheerless, and utterly void of elevating inspirations. Only when the family had “moved” into the malarious backwoods of Indiana, the mother had died, and a stepmother, a woman of thrift and energy, had taken charge of the children, the shaggy-headed, ragged, barefooted, forlorn boy, then seven years old, “began to feel like a human being”. Hard work was his early lot. When a mere boy he had to help in supporting the family, either on his father’s clearing, or hired out to other farmers to plough, or dig ditches, or chop wood, or drive ox teams; occasionally also to “tend the baby” when the farmer’s wife was otherwise engaged.
But his standing before posterity will not be exalted by mere praise of his virtues and abilities, nor by any concealment of his limitations and faults. The stature of the great man, one of whose peculiar charms consisted in his being so unlike all other great men, will rather lose than gain by the idealization which so easily runs into the commonplace. For it was distinctly the weird mixture of qualities and forces in him, of the lofty with the common, the ideal with the uncouth, of that which he had become with that which he had not ceased to be, that made him so fascinating a character among his fellow men, gave him his singular power over their minds and hearts, and fired him to be the greatest leader in the greatest crisis of our national life. His was indeed a marvelous growth. The statesman or the military hero born and reared in a log cabin is a familiar figure in American history; but we may search in vain among our celebrities for one whose origin and early life equaled Abraham Lincoln’s wretchedness.
About that time, an order was issued by the Emperor Augustus, (he made the original of this famous statue, you remember) that a census should be taken of the whole empire. (This was about the first census taken during the time when Quirinius was Governor of Syria). Accordingly everyone went to his own town to be registered. So Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem, the town of David, in Judea, (because he belonged to the family of David and was one of his descendents), to be registered. Mary his espoused wife who was shortly to become a mother went to be registered with him. Her time came while they were there, and she gave birth to her first child, a son. And as there was no room for him at the inn, she laid him in a manager.
In the same district there were shepherds out in the open fields, watching their flocks that night, when an angel of the Lord suddenly stood by them and the glory of the Lord shone around about them. They were much frightened. "Do not be afraid," the angel said. "Listen, I am bringing you good news of a great joy which is in store for the whole nation, for there has been born for you today, in the town of David, a Savior, who is Christ and Master. And this is the sign you shall have. You will find a baby lying, wrapped up in a manger."