Though Jesus wrote no book himself and never wrote any recorded thing except a few words in the sand which some passing breeze or foot quickly obliterated, yet out of him have grown vast forests of literature.  It would tear great gaps in the shelves of any library and leave the remaining volumes spotted with blank spaces if all the books about him and references to him were removed.  A thousand books have been written about Lincoln and eighty thousand about Napoleon, but if all the books that were ever written about Lincoln and Washington and Napoleon and Caesar were piled up in one heap it would look small beside the mountain of books that have been written about Jesus Christ.  Not only have the writers written about him above every other figure in history, but in like degree the artists have painted him and the musicians have sung about him.  He is the most fertile theme of all literature and art, and the gifts that genius have heaped about his feet are an incomparable testimony to the adoration that is paid to him.

About the first use to which any notable invention is put is to spread the gospel of Jesus.  The very first book printed on a printing press was the Bible, and this wonderful and perhaps greatest human invention has been busier printing this book than any other to this day and multiplies its copies by the hundred million over the world.  The newspaper is a mighty means of spreading his principles.  The railway and steamship carry his gospel, and the airship gives wings to the same good news.  Telegraph and telephone flash it, and wireless waves set the ether over whole continents and oceans aquiver with the messages of Jesus Christ.  The sewing machine sews for him, the typewriter writes for him, and even battle ships and bayonets may fight for him.  Sooner or later every inventor must lay his magic machine at his feet.  For him the statesman legislates, the scientist investigates, the author writes, the artist paints and the singer sings.  In an increasing degree Jesus is drawing all men into his service, and they are laying their treasures at his feet.  The gold of the wise men was only the first gleam of the shining heaps of wealth that his followers are now piling on the altar of his service.  This process will go on until the whole world will lie at his feet.

Every generation sends a more numerous company to Bethlehem.  With every century worshipers arrive from more distant lands.  From every quarter of the circumference of the globe paths now run to the manger of this Child, worn deep by millions of feet.  The nations are beginning to come.  By and by these converging paths will be crowded and all the ends of the earth shall bring their gold and shall worship at his feet.