The birth of Jesus Christ took place as follows:--His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but, before the marriage took place, she found herself to be with child by the power of the Holy Spirit.

She shall give birth to a son; and you shall give him the name Jesus, for it is he who shall save his people from their sins."

On his taking her hand, the fever left her, and she rose and began to wait upon him.

While Jesus was saying this, a President of a Synagogue came up and bowed to the ground before him. "My daughter," he said, "Has just died; but come and place your hand on her, and she will be restored to life."

"If I only touch his cloak," she said to herself, "I shall get well."

He said: "Go away, the little girl is not dead; she is asleep." They began to laugh at him;

But, when the people had been sent out, Jesus went in, and took the little girl's hand, and she rose.

At the Judgment the Queen of the South will rise up with the present generation, and will condemn it, because she came from the very ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon; and here is more than a Solomon!

That he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked.

And his head was brought on a dish and given to the girl, and she took it to her mother.

But Jesus did not answer her a word; and his disciples came up and begged him to send her away. "She keeps calling out after us," they said.

"Yes, Master," she said, "for even dogs do feed on the scraps that fall from their owners' table."

"What is it that you want?" he asked. "I want you to say," she replied, "that in your Kingdom these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right, and the other on your left."

At the resurrection, then, whose wife will she be out of the seven, all of them having had her?"

Jerusalem! Jerusalem! She who slays the Prophets and stones the messengers sent to her--Oh, how often have I wished to gather your children round me, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not came!

"Why are you troubling the woman?" Jesus said, when he noticed it. "For this is a beautiful deed that she has done to me.

In pouring this perfume on my body, she has done it for my burying.