I may have shared this before, but it is one of my favorite writings from F. W. Boreham (1871-1959) and is included in the book Arthur Mee’s Book of One Thousand Beautiful Things. Enjoy.
A century ago men were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon, and waiting with feverish impatience for news of the wars. And all the while, in their own homes, babies were being born.
But who could think about babies? Everybody was thinking about battles.
In one year, midway between Trafalgar and Waterloo, there stole into the world a host of heroes. Gladstone was born in Liverpool, Tennyson at the Somersby Rectory, and Oliver Wendell Holmes in Massachusetts; and the very same day of that same year Charles Darwin made his debut at Shrewsbury, and Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath in old Kentucky. Music was enriched by the advent of Felix Mendelssohn at Hamburg.
But nobody thought about babies; everybody was thinking about battles. Yet which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809? We fancy that God can only manage His world with big battalions, when all the while He is doing it by beautiful babies. When a group wants righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening, God sends a baby into the world to do it.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11-12
One Thousand Beautiful Things, Arthur Mee, Hodder and Stoughton, London, England, 1934.
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