Village Preaching for Saints' Days Author:Sabine Baring Gould Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON V. HOLY INNOCENTS. St. Matt. n. 18. " In Rama there was a voice heard, lamentations, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her chil... more »dren, and would not be comforted, because they were not." In the piteous narratives of the tragedies perpetrated by the Turks upon the Bulgarians, I remember one incident that especially struck me. It was in the letter uf a newspaper correspondent describing a second visit to Batak some time after the massacre. He came upon a poor 'woman half starved, crouching in her mined cabin, with two little bleached skulls on her lap, which she rocked and patted, and moaned over. In the butchery, her husband and all herchildren had perished, and all she could recover of her own were the two little heads of her babes, and these she fondled and wept over, in dull despair. She had nothing to live for, no future. Rachel was weeping for her children and would not be comforted, because they were not. I suppose that Bethlehem must have witnessed many such scenes after the tragedy committed there, the memory of which is preserved in this day's festival. Some of you may recollect the famous picture at Venice, by Tintoret, of the Murder of the Innocents, and been spell-bound? as you stood before it, by the vivid representation of the agony of those mothers, and their vain efforts to screen their little ones from the sword. Some interposing their own arms and breasts in hope to receive the blow designed for their darlings, others seeking frantically to avert it by intercession, and yet others hoping to conceal the children that will proclaim their presence by their cries. Now evening has settled down on Bethlehem, and the stars have come out in the sky. All night long there rises from the little city cries and moans, Rachel weeping for he...« less