CHAPTER XV
The shadows cast over the Orchard of Palms by the
mountains at set of sun left no sweet margin time of violet sky and drowsing
earth between the day and night. The latter came early and swift; and against
its glooming in the tent this evening the servants brought four candlesticks of
brass, and set them by the corners of the table. To each candlestick there were
four branches, and on each branch a lighted silver lamp and a supply cup of
olive-oil. In light ample, even brilliant, the group at dessert continued their
conversation, speaking in the Syriac dialect, familiar to all peoples in that
part of the world.
The Egyptian told
his story of the meeting of the three in the desert, and agreed with the sheik
that it was in December, twenty-seven years before, when he and his companions
fleeing from Herod arrived at the tent praying shelter. The narrative was heard
with intense interest; even the servants lingering when they could to catch its
details. Ben-Hur received it as became a man listening to a revelation of deep
concern to all humanity, and to none of more concern than the people of Israel.
In his mind, as we shall presently see, there was crystallizing an idea which
was to change his course of life, if not absorb it absolutely.
As the recital
proceeded, the impression made by Balthasar upon the young Jew increased; at
its conclusion, his feeling was too profound to permit a doubt of its truth;
indeed, there was nothing left him desirable in the connection but assurances,
if such were to be had, pertaining exclusively to the consequences of the
amazing event.
And now there is
wanting an explanation which the very discerning may have heretofore demanded;
certainly it can be no longer delayed. Our tale begins, in point of date not
less than fact, to trench close upon the opening of the ministry of the Son of
Mary, whom we have seen but once since this same Balthasar left him
worshipfully in his mother's lap in the cave by Bethlehem. Henceforth to the
end the mysterious Child will be a subject of continual reference; and slowly
though surely the current of events with which we are dealing will bring us
nearer and nearer to him, until finally we see him a man - we would like, if
armed contrariety of opinion would permit it, to add - A MAN WHOM THE WORLD
COULD NOT DO WITHOUT. Of this declaration, apparently so simple, a shrewd mind
inspired by faith will make much - and in welcome. Before his time, and since,
there have been men indispensable to particular people and periods; but his
indispensability was to the whole race, and for all time - a respect in which
it is unique, solitary, divine.
To Sheik Ilderim
the story was not new. He had heard it from the three wise men together under
circumstances which left no room for doubt; he had acted upon it seriously, for
the helping a fugitive escape from the anger of the first Herod was dangerous.
Now one of the three sat at his table again, a welcome guest and revered
friend. Sheik Ilderim certainly believed the story; yet, in the nature of
things, its mighty central fact could not come home to him with the force and
absorbing effect it came to Ben-Hur. He was an Arab, whose interest in the
consequences was but general; on the other hand, Ben-Hur was an Israelite and a
Jew, with more than a special interest in - if the solecism can be pardoned -
the truth of the fact. He laid hold of the circumstance with a purely Jewish
mind.
From his cradle,
let it be remembered, he had heard of the Messiah; at the colleges he had been
made familiar with all that was known of that Being at once the hope, the fear,
and the peculiar glory of the chosen people; the prophets from the first to the
last of the heroic line foretold him; and the coming had been, and yet was, the
theme of endless exposition with the rabbis - in the synagogues, in the
schools, in the Temple, of fast-days and feast-days, in public and in private,
the national teachers expounded and kept expounding until all the children of Abraham,
wherever their lots were cast, bore the Messiah in expectation, and by it
literally, and with iron severity, ruled and moulded their lives.
Doubtless, it
will be understood from this that there was much argument among the Jews
themselves about the Messiah, and so there was; but the disputation was all
limited to one point, and one only - when would he come?
Disquisition is
for the preacher; whereas the writer is but telling a tale, and that he may not
lose his character, the explanation he is making requires notice merely of a
point connected with the Messiah about which the unanimity among the chosen
people was matter of marvellous astonishment: he was to be, when come, the KING
OF THE JEWS - their political King, their Caesar. By their instrumentality he
was to make armed conquest of the earth, and then, for their profit and in the
name of God, hold it down forever. On this faith, dear reader, the Pharisees or
Separatists - the latter being rather a political term - in the cloisters and
around the altars of the Temple, built an edifice of hope far overtopping the
dream of the Macedonian. His but covered the earth; theirs covered the earth
and filled the skies; that is to say, in their bold, boundless fantasy of
blasphemous egotism, God the Almighty was in effect to suffer them for their
uses to nail him by the ear to a door in sign of eternal servitude.
Returning
directly to Ben-Hur, it is to be observed now that there were two circumstances
in his life the result of which had been to keep him in a state comparatively
free from the influence and hard effects of the audacious faith of his
Separatist countrymen.
In the first
place, his father followed the faith of the Sadducees, who may, in a general
way, be termed the Liberals of their time. They had some loose opinions in
denial of the soul. They were strict constructionists and rigorous observers of
the Law as found in the books of Moses; but they held the vast mass of
Rabbinical addenda to those books in derisive contempt. They were unquestionably
a sect, yet their religion was more a philosophy than a creed; they did not
deny themselves the enjoyments of life, and saw many admirable methods and
productions among the Gentile divisions of the race. In politics they were the
active opposition of the Separatists. In the natural order of things, these
circumstances and conditions, opinions and peculiarities, would have descended
to the son as certainly and really as any portion of his father's estate; and,
as we have seen, he was actually in course of acquiring them, when the second
saving event overtook him.
Upon a youth of
Ben-Hur's mind and temperament the influence of five years of affluent life in
Rome can be appreciated best by recalling that the great city was then, in
fact, the meeting-place of the nations - their meeting-place politically and
commercially, as well as for the indulgence of pleasure without restraint.
Round and round the golden mile-stone in front of the Forum - now in gloom of
eclipse, now in unapproachable splendor - flowed all the active currents of
humanity. If excellences of manner, refinements of society, attainments of
intellect, and glory of achievement made no impression upon him, how could he,
as the son of Arrius, pass day after day, through a period so long, from the
beautiful villa near Misenum into the receptions of Caesar, and be wholly
uninfluenced by what he saw there of kings, princes, ambassadors, hostages, and
delegates, suitors all of them from every known land, waiting humbly the yes or
no which was to make or unmake them? As mere assemblages, to be sure, there was
nothing to compare with the gatherings at Jerusalem in celebration of the
Passover; yet when he sat under the purple velaria of the Circus Maximus one of
three hundred and fifty thousand spectators, he must have been visited by the
thought that possibly there might be some branches of the family of man worthy
divine consideration, if not mercy, though they were of the uncircumcised -
some, by their sorrows, and, yet worse, by their hopelessness in the midst of
sorrows, fitted for brotherhood in the promises to his countrymen.
That he should
have had such a thought under such circumstances was but natural; we think so
much, at least, will be admitted: but when the reflection came to him, and he
gave himself up to it, he could not have been blind to a certain distinction.
The wretchedness of the masses, and their hopeless condition, had no relation
whatever to religion; their murmurs and groans were not against their gods or
for want of gods. In the oak-woods of Britain the Druids held their followers;
Odin and Freya maintained their godships in Gaul and Germany and among the
Hyperboreans; Egypt was satisfied with her crocodiles and Anubis; the Persians
were yet devoted to Ormuzd and Ahriman, holding them in equal honor; in hope of
the Nirvana, the Hindoos moved on patient as ever in the rayless paths of
Brahm; the beautiful Greek mind, in pauses of philosophy, still sang the heroic
gods of Homer; while in Rome nothing was so common and cheap as gods. According
to whim, the masters of the world, because they were masters, carried their
worship and offerings indifferently from altar to altar, delighted in the
pandemonium they had erected. Their discontent, if they were discontented, was
with the number of gods; for, after borrowing all the divinities of the earth
they proceeded to deify their Caesars, and vote them altars and holy service.
No, the unhappy condition was not from religion, but misgovernment and
usurpations and countless tyrannies. The Avernus men had been tumbled into, and
were praying to be relieved from, was terribly but essentially political. The
supplication - everywhere alike, in Lodinum, Alexandria, Athens, Jerusalem -
was for a king to conquer with, not a god to worship.
Studying the situation
after two thousand years, we can see and say that religiously there was no
relief from the universal confusion except some God could prove himself a true
God, and a masterful one, and come to the rescue; but the people of the time,
even the discerning and philosophical, discovered no hope except in crushing
Rome; that done, the relief would follow in restorations and reorganizations;
therefore they prayed, conspired, rebelled, fought, and died, drenching the
soil to-day with blood, to-morrow with tears - and always with the same result.
It remains to be
said now that Ben-Hur was in agreement with the mass of men of his time not
Romans. The five years' residence in the capital served him with opportunity to
see and study the miseries of the subjugated world; and in full belief that the
evils which afflicted it were political, and to be cured only by the sword, he
was going forth to fit himself for a part in the day of resort to the heroic
remedy. By practice of arms he was a perfect soldier; but war has its higher
fields, and he who would move successfully in them must know more than to
defend with shield and thrust with spear. In those fields the general finds his
tasks, the greatest of which is the reduction of the many into one, and that
one himself; the consummate captain is a fighting-man armed with an army. This
conception entered into the scheme of life to which he was further swayed by
the reflection that the vengeance he dreamed of, in connection with his
individual wrongs, would be more surely found in some of the ways of war than
in any pursuit of peace.
The feelings with
which he listened to Balthasar can be now understood. The story touched two of
the most sensitive points of his being so they rang within him. His heart beat
fast - and faster still when, searching himself, he found not a doubt either
that the recital was true in every particular, or that the Child so
miraculously found was the Messiah. Marvelling much that Israel rested so dead
to the revelation, and that he had never heard of it before that day, two
questions presented themselves to him as centring all it was at that moment
further desirable to know:
Where was the
Child then?
And what was his
mission?
With apologies
for the interruptions, he proceeded to draw out the opinions of Balthasar, who
was in nowise loath to speak.
CHAPTER XVI
"If I could
answer you," Balthasar said, in his simple, earnest, devout way -”oh, if I
knew where he is, how quickly I would go to him! The seas should not stay me,
nor the mountains."
"You have
tried to find him, then?" asked Ben-Hur.
A smile flitted
across the face of the Egyptian.
"The first
task I charged myself with after leaving the shelter given me in the
desert" - Balthasar cast a grateful look at Ilderim -”was to learn what
became of the Child. But a year had passed, and I dared not go up to Judea in
person, for Herod still held the throne bloody-minded as ever. In Egypt, upon
my return, there were a few friends to believe the wonderful things I told them
of what I had seen and heard - a few who rejoiced with me that a Redeemer was
born - a few who never tired of the story. Some of them came up for me looking
after the Child. They went first to Bethlehem, and found there the khan and the
cave; but the steward - he who sat at the gate the night of the birth, and the
night we came following the star - was gone. The king had taken him away, and
he was no more seen."
"But they
found some proofs, surely," said Ben-Hur, eagerly.
"Yes, proofs
written in blood - a village in mourning; mothers yet crying for their little
ones. You must know, when Herod heard of our flight, he sent down and slew the
youngest-born of the children of Bethlehem. Not one escaped. The faith of my
messengers was confirmed; but they came to me saying the Child was dead, slain
with the other innocents."
"Dead!"
exclaimed Ben-Hur, aghast. "Dead, sayest thou?"
"Nay, my son, I did not say so. I said they,
my messengers, told me the Child was dead. I did not believe the report then; I
do not believe it now."
"I see -
thou hast some special knowledge."
"Not so, not
so," said Balthasar, dropping his gaze. "The Spirit was to go with us
no farther than to the Child. When we came out of the cave, after our presents
were given and we had seen the babe, we looked first thing for the star; but it
was gone, and we knew we were left to ourselves. The last inspiration of the
Holy One - the last I can recall - was that which sent us to Ilderim for
safety."
"Yes,"
said the sheik, fingering his beard nervously. "You told me you were sent
to me by a Spirit - I remember it."
"I have no
special knowledge," Balthasar continued, observing the dejection which had
fallen upon Ben-Hur; "but, my son, I have given the matter much thought -
thought continuing through years, inspired by faith, which, I assure you,
calling God for witness, is as strong in me now as in the hour I heard the
voice of the Spirit calling me by the shore of the lake. If you will listen, I
will tell you why I believe the Child is living."
Both Ilderim and
Ben-Hur looked assent, and appeared to summon their faculties that they might
understand as well as hear. The interest reached the servants, who drew near to
the divan, and stood listening. Throughout the tent there was the profoundest
silence.
"We three
believe in God."
Balthasar bowed
his head as he spoke.
"And he is
the Truth," he resumed. "His word is God. The hills may turn to dust,
and the seas be drunk dry by south winds; but his word shall stand, because it
is the Truth."
The utterance was
in a manner inexpressibly solemn.
"The voice,
which was his, speaking to me by the lake, said, 'Blessed art thou, O son of
Mizraim! The Redemption cometh. With two others from the remotenesses of the
earth, thou shalt see the Savior.' I have seen the Savior - blessed be his
name! - but the Redemption, which was the second part of the promise, is yet to
come. Seest thou now? If the Child be dead, there is no agent to bring the
Redemption about, and the word is naught, and God - nay, I dare not say
it!"
He threw up both
hands in horror.
"The
Redemption was the work for which the Child was born; and so long as the
promise abides, not even death can separate him from his work until it is
fulfilled, or at least in the way of fulfilment. Take you that now as one
reason for my belief; then give me further attention."
The good man
paused.
"Wilt thou
not taste the wine? It is at thy hand - see," said Ilderim, respectfully.
Balthasar drank,
and, seeming refreshed, continued:
"The Savior
I saw was born of woman, in nature like us, and subject to all our ills - even
death. Let that stand as the first proposition. Consider next the work set
apart to him. Was it not a performance for which only a man is fitted? - a man
wise, firm, discreet - a man, not a child? To become such he had to grow as we
grow. Bethink you now of the dangers his life was subject to in the interval -
the long interval between childhood and maturity. The existing powers were his
enemies; Herod was his enemy; and what would Rome have been? And as for Israel
- that he should not be accepted by Israel was the motive for cutting him off.
See you now. What better way was there to take care of his life in the helpless
growing time than by passing him into obscurity? Wherefore I say to myself, and
to my listening faith, which is never moved except by yearning of love - I say
he is not dead, but lost; and, his work remaining undone, he will come again.
There you have the reasons for my belief. Are they not good?"
Ilderim's small
Arab eyes were bright with understanding, and Ben-Hur, lifted from his
dejection, said heartily, "I, at least, may not gainsay them. What
further, pray?"
"Hast thou
not enough, my son? Well," he began, in calmer tone, "seeing that the
reasons were good - more plainly, seeing it was God's will that the Child
should not be found - I settled my faith into the keeping of patience, and took
to waiting." He raised his eyes, full of holy trust, and broke off
abstractedly -”I am waiting now. He lives, keeping well his mighty secret. What
though I cannot go to him, or name the hill or the vale of his abiding-place?
He lives - it may be as the fruit in blossom, it may be as the fruit just
ripening; but by the certainty there is in the promise and reason of God, I
know he lives."
A thrill of awe
struck Ben-Hur - a thrill which was but the dying of his half-formed doubt.
"Where
thinkest thou he is?" he asked, in a low voice, and hesitating, like one
who feels upon his lips the pressure of a sacred silence.
Balthasar looked
at him kindly, and replied, his mind not entirely freed from its abstraction,
"In my house
on the Nile, so close to the river that the passers-by in boats see it and its
reflection in the water at the same time - in my house, a few weeks ago, I sat
thinking. A man thirty years old, I said to myself, should have his fields of
life all ploughed, and his planting well done; for after that it is
summer-time, with space scarce enough to ripen his sowing. The Child, I said
further, is now twenty-seven - his time to plant must be at hand. I asked
myself, as you here asked me, my son, and answered by coming hither, as to a
good resting-place close by the land thy fathers had from God. Where else
should he appear, if not in Judea? In what city should he begin his work, if
not in Jerusalem? Who should be first to receive the blessings he is to bring,
if not the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in love, at least, the
children of the Lord? If I were bidden go seek him, I would search well the
hamlets and villages on the slopes of the mountains of Judea and Galilee
falling eastwardly into the valley of the Jordan. He is there now. Standing in
a door or on a hill-top, only this evening he saw the sun set one day nearer
the time when he himself shall become the light of the world."
Balthasar ceased,
with his hand raised and finger pointing as if at Judea. All the listeners,
even the dull servants outside the divan, affected by his fervor, were startled
as if by a majestic presence suddenly apparent within the tent. Nor did the
sensation die away at once: of those at the table, each sat awhile thinking.
The spell was finally broken by Ben-Hur.
"I see, good
Balthasar," he said, "that thou hast been much and strangely favored.
I see, also, that thou art a wise man indeed. It is not in my power to tell how
grateful I am for the things thou hast told me. I am warned of the coming of
great events, and borrow somewhat from thy faith. Complete the obligation, I
pray thee, by telling further of the mission of him for whom thou art waiting,
and for whom from this night I too shall wait as becomes a believing son of
Judah. He is to be a Savior, thou saidst; is he not to be King of the Jews
also?"
"My
son," said Balthasar, in his benignant way, "the mission is yet a
purpose in the bosom of God. All I think about it is wrung from the words of
the Voice in connection with the prayer to which they were in answer. Shall we
refer to them again?"
"Thou art
the teacher."
"The cause
of my disquiet," Balthasar began, calmly -”that which made me a preacher
in Alexandria and in the villages of the Nile; that which drove me at last into
the solitude where the Spirit found me - was the fallen condition of men,
occasioned, as I believed, by loss of the knowledge of God. I sorrowed for the
sorrows of my kind - not of one class, but all of them. So utterly were they
fallen it seemed to me there could be no Redemption unless God himself would
make it his work; and I prayed him to come, and that I might see him. 'Thy good
works have conquered. The Redemption cometh; thou shalt see the Savior' - thus
the Voice spake; and with the answer I went up to Jerusalem rejoicing. Now, to
whom is the Redemption? To all the world. And how shall it be? Strengthen thy
faith, my son! Men say, I know, that there will be no happiness until Rome is razed
from her hills. That is to say, the ills of the time are not, as I thought
them, from ignorance of God, but from the misgovernment of rulers. Do we need
to be told that human governments are never for the sake of religion? How many
kings have you heard of who were better than their subjects? Oh no, no! The
Redemption cannot be for a political purpose - to pull down rulers and powers,
and vacate their places merely that others may take and enjoy them. If that
were all of it, the wisdom of God would cease to be surpassing. I tell you,
though it be but the saying of blind to blind, he that comes is to be a Savior
of souls; and the Redemption means God once more on earth, and righteousness,
that his stay here may be tolerable to himself."
Disappointment showed
plainly on Ben-Hur's face - his head drooped; and if he was not convinced, he
yet felt himself incapable that moment of disputing the opinion of the
Egyptian. Not so Ilderim.
"By the
splendor of God!" he cried, impulsively, "the judgment does away with
all custom. The ways of the world are fixed, and cannot be changed. There must
be a leader in every community clothed with power, else there is no
reform."
Balthasar
received the burst gravely.
"Thy wisdom,
good sheik, is of the world; and thou dost forget that it is from the ways of
the world we are to be redeemed. Man as a subject is the ambition of a king;
the soul of a man for its salvation is the desire of a God."
Ilderim, though
silenced, shook his head, unwilling to believe. Ben-Hur took up the argument
for him.
"Father
- I call thee such by permission," he said -”for whom wert thou required
to ask at the gates of Jerusalem?"
The sheik threw
him a grateful look.
"I was to
ask of the people," said Balthasar, quietly, "'Where is he that is
born King of the Jews?'"
"And you saw
him in the cave by Bethlehem?"
"We saw and
worshipped him, and gave him presents - Melchior, gold; Gaspar, frankincense;
and I, myrrh."
"When thou
dost speak of fact, O father, to hear thee is to believe," said Ben-Hur;
"but in the matter of opinion, I cannot understand the kind of king thou
wouldst make of the Child - I cannot separate the ruler from his powers and
duties."
"Son,"
said Balthasar, "we have the habit of studying closely the things which
chance to lie at our feet, giving but a look at the greater objects in the
distance. Thou seest now but the title - KING OF THE JEWS; wilt thou lift thine
eyes to the mystery beyond it, the stumbling-block will disappear. Of the
title, a word. Thy Israel hath seen better days - days in which God called thy
people endearingly his people, and dealt with them through prophets. Now, if in
those days he promised them the Savior I saw - promised him as KING OF THE JEWS
- the appearance must be according to the promise, if only for the word's sake.
Ah, thou seest the reason of my question at the gate! - thou seest, and I will
no more of it, but pass on. It may be, next, thou art regarding the dignity of
the Child; if so, bethink thee - what is it to be a successor of Herod? - by the
world's standard of honor, what? Could not God better by his beloved? If thou
canst think of the Almighty Father in want of a title, and stooping to borrow
the inventions of men, why was I not bidden ask for a Caesar at once? Oh, for
the substance of that whereof we speak, look higher, I pray thee! Ask rather of
what he whom we await shall be king; for I do tell, my son, that is the key to
the mystery, which no man shall understand without the key."
Balthasar raised
his eyes devoutly.
"There is a
kingdom on the earth, though it is not of it - a kingdom of wider bounds than
the earth - wider than the sea and the earth, though they were rolled together
as finest gold and spread by the beating of hammers. Its existence is a fact as
our hearts are facts, and we journey through it from birth to death without
seeing it; nor shall any man see it until he hath first known his own soul; for
the kingdom is not for him, but for his soul. And in its dominion there is
glory such as hath not entered imagination - original, incomparable, impossible
of increase."
"What thou
sayest, father, is a riddle to me," said Ben-Hur. "I never heard of
such a kingdom."
"Nor did
I," said Ilderim.
"And I may
not tell more of it," Balthasar added, humbly dropping his eyes.
"What it is, what it is for, how it may be reached, none can know until
the Child comes to take possession of it as his own. He brings the key of the
viewless gate, which he will open for his beloved, among whom will be all who
love him, for of such only the redeemed will be."
After that there
was a long silence, which Balthasar accepted as the end of the conversation.
"Good
sheik," he said, in his placid way, "to-morrow or the next day I will
go up to the city for a time. My daughter wishes to see the preparations for
the games. I will speak further about the time of our going. And, my son, I
will see you again. To you both, peace and good-night."
They all arose
from the table. The sheik and Ben-Hur remained looking after the Egyptian until
he was conducted out of the tent.
"Sheik
Ilderim," said Ben-Hur then, "I have heard strange things tonight.
Give me leave, I pray, to walk by the lake that I may think of them."
"Go; and I
will come after you."
They washed their
hands again; after which, at a sign from the master, a servant brought Ben-Hur
his shoes, and directly he went out.
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