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questions will never cease. This is a typical one: How long was the holy family in the cave? Once in a while it will happen that even after much research you will have to say, “I really don’t know”; but this is already great progress compared with those who, when asked this same question, answer, “What do I care?”
    Our children wanted to have a day by day account. Now the priest of the circumcision has left with the woman and the implements. What happened next? We figured out together that the next days and nights might have been pretty unquiet with a sick baby in the house. When the wound had healed, the little Jesus smiled again; how relieved Mary and Joseph must have felt.
    “And how about the census?” asked one of the youngsters. “Didn’t Joseph have to go downtown and announce the new name?”
    This was a good question. Surely Joseph had to do that, and so we accompanied him “downtown” to Bethlehem, as he approached once more the census taker, and watched how for the first time in history the holy name was written down. This was not an uncommon name, and in the way of His days it was spelled Joshua or Jeshua.
    Even if we don’t know how long it was, we may be sure it was as soon as possible that Joseph got his little family into a house in Bethlehem. The next thing was to find out how the house in Bethlehem looked. With the help of pictures from illustrated articles and postcards sent by friends from their pilgrimages to the Holy Land, we easily found out what the houses looked like.
    What I am telling here does not refer to the happenings of one year. It also is not storytelling to children. It is honest-to-goodness research work done by a whole family throughout the years. Your interest, once aroused, will compel you to watch out for illustrated articles about the Holy Land and to keep postcards from there. A map of the Holy Land will soon prove to be an absolute must. What fun it was when we also found a map of Vermont on the same scale and put the two on the wall next to each other to compare. The distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem was about as far as from Stowe to Rutland, or a little less. From Jerusalem to Bethlehem it would be five miles south of Stowe and one mile east. It is a good idea to take a family hike of just this distance once, both ways on foot, of course, because soon we accompany the holy family on their way to Jerusalem, to the temple.
    “The days of her purifying” refers to a law in the Old Testament. “She shall touch no hallowed thing,” it says of a mother after she has given birth to a child, “nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled” (Lev. 12:4; KJV). This was 40 days if the child was a boy and 80 days if the child was a girl, that the mother could not enter the temple and was liturgically unclean. Then the law continues: “And when the days of her purification are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest: Who shall offer it before the Lord, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed…. And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons …and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean” (Lev. 12:6-8; KJV). Right away the idea comes to one’s mind: Mary was not allowed to touch any holy thing — but there she was carrying holiness itself around in her arms, and she was not supposed to enter into the sanctuary of the temple.
    After the purification of the mother there was still another law to fulfill, and that was the presentation of the boy: “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is mine” (Exod. 13:1–2; KJV).
    This law served as a