by Lew Wallace
CHAPTER III
The tent was cosily pitched beneath a tree where the gurgle of thestream was constantly in ear. Overhead the broad leaves hung motionlesson their stems; the delicate reed-stalks off in the pearly haze stood uparrowy-straight; occasionally a home-returning bee shot humming athwartthe shade, and a partridge creeping from the sedge drank, whistled tohis mate, and ran away. The restfulness of the vale, the freshness ofthe air, the garden beauty, the Sabbath stillness, seemed to haveaffected the spirits of the elder Egyptian; his voice, gestures,and whole manner were unusually gentle; and often as he bent hiseyes upon Ben-Hur conversing with Iras, they softened with pity.
"When we overtook you, son of Hur," he said, at the conclusion ofthe repast, "it seemed your face was also turned towards Jerusalem.May I ask, without offence, if you are going so far?"
"I am going to the Holy City."
"For the great need I have to spare myself prolonged toil, I willfurther ask you, Is there a shorter road than that by Rabbath-Ammon?"
"A rougher route, but shorter, lies by Gerasa and Rabbath-Gilead.It is the one I design taking."
"I am impatient," said Balthasar. "Latterly my sleep has beenvisited by dreams--or rather by the same dream in repetition.A voice--it is nothing more--comes and tells me, 'Haste--arise! Hewhom thou hast so long awaited is at hand.'"
"You mean he that is to be King of the Jews?" Ben-Hur asked,gazing at the Egyptian in wonder.
"Even so."
"Then you have heard nothing of him?"
"Nothing, except the words of the voice in the dream."
"Here, then, are tidings to make you glad as they made me."
From his gown Ben-Hur drew the letter received from Malluch.The hand the Egyptian held out trembled violently. He read aloud,and as he read his feelings increased; the limp veins in his neckswelled and throbbed. At the conclusion he raised his suffusedeyes in thanksgiving and prayer. He asked no questions, yet hadno doubts.
"Thou hast been very good to me, O God," he said. "Give me, I praythee, to see the Saviour again, and worship him, and thy servantwill be ready to go in peace."
The words, the manner, the singular personality of the simple prayer,touched Ben-Hur with a sensation new and abiding. God never seemedso actual and so near by; it was as if he were there bending overthem or sitting at their side--a Friend whose favors were to behad by the most unceremonious asking--a Father to whom all hischildren were alike in love--Father, not more of the Jew than ofthe Gentile--the Universal Father, who needed no intermediates,no rabbis, no priests, no teachers. The idea that such a God mightsend mankind a Saviour instead of a king appeared to Ben-Hur in alight not merely new, but so plain that he could almost discernboth the greater want of such a gift and its greater consistencywith the nature of such a Deity. So he could not resist asking,
"Now that he has come, O Balthasar, you still think he is to bea Saviour, and not a king?"
Balthasar gave him a look thoughtful as it was tender.
"How shall I understand you?" he asked, in return. "The Spirit,which was the Star that was my guide of old, has not appeared tome since I met you in the tent of the good sheik; that is to say,I have not seen or heard it as formerly. I believe the voice thatspoke to me in my dreams was it; but other than that I have norevelation."
"I will recall the difference between us," said Ben-Hur, with deference."You were of opinion that he would be a king, but not as Caesar is;you thought his sovereignty would be spiritual, not of the world."
"Oh yes," the Egyptian answered; "and I am of the same opinionnow. I see the divergence in our faith. You are going to meet aking of men, I a Saviour of souls."
He paused with the look often seen when people are struggling,with introverted effort, to disentangle a thought which is eithertoo high for quick discernment or too subtle for simple expression.
"Let me try, O son of Hur," he said, directly, "and help you to aclear understanding of my belief; then it may be, seeing how thespiritual kingdom I expect him to set up can be more excellent inevery sense than anything of mere Caesarean splendor, you will betterunderstand the reason of the interest I take in the mysterious personwe are going to welcome.
"I cannot tell you when the idea of a Soul in every man had itsorigin. Most likely the first parents brought it with them out ofthe garden in which they had their first dwelling. We all do know,however, that it has never perished entirely out of mind. By somepeoples it was lost, but not by all; in some ages it dulled andfaded, in others it was overwhelmed with doubts; but, in greatgoodness, God kept sending us at intervals mighty intellects toargue it back to faith and hope.
"Why should there be a Soul in every man? Look, O son of Hur--forone moment look at the necessity of such a device. To lie downand die, and be no more--no more forever--time never was when manwished for such an end; nor has the man ever been who did not inhis heart promise himself something better. The monuments of thenations are all protests against nothingness after death; so arestatues and inscriptions; so is history. The greatest of our Egyptiankings had his effigy cut-out of a hill of solid rock. Day afterday he went with a host in chariots to see the work; at last itwas finished, never effigy so grand, so enduring: it looked likehim--the features were his, faithful even in expression. Now maywe not think of him saying in that moment of pride, 'Let Deathcome; there is an after-life for me!' He had his wish. The statueis there yet.
"But what is the after-life he thus secured? Only a recollectionby men--a glory unsubstantial as moonshine on the brow of the greatbust; a story in stone--nothing more. Meantime what has become ofthe king? There is an embalmed body up in the royal tombs whichonce was his--an effigy not so fair to look at as the other outin the Desert. But where, O son of Hur, where is the king himself?Is he fallen into nothingness? Two thousand years have gone sincehe was a man alive as you and I are. Was his last breath the endof him?
"To say yes would be to accuse God; let us rather accept his betterplan of attaining life after death for us--actual life, I mean--thesomething more than a place in mortal memory; life with goingand coming, with sensation, with knowledge, with power and allappreciation; life eternal in term though it may be with changesof condition.
"Ask you what God's plan is? The gift of a Soul to each of us atbirth, with this simple law--there shall be no immortality exceptthrough the Soul. In that law see the necessity of which I spoke.
"Let us turn from the necessity now. A word as to the pleasurethere is in the thought of a Soul in each of us. In the first place,it robs death of its terrors by making dying a change for the better,and burial but the planting of a seed from which there will springa new life. In the next place, behold me as I am--weak, weary, old,shrunken in body, and graceless; look at my wrinkled face, think ofmy failing senses, listen to my shrilled voice. Ah! what happinessto me in the promise that when the tomb opens, as soon it will,to receive the worn-out husk I call myself, the now viewless doorsof the universe, which is but the palace of God, will swing wideajar to receive me, a liberated immortal Soul!
"I would I could tell the ecstasy there must be in that life tocome! Do not say I know nothing about it. This much I know,and it is enough for me--the being a Soul implies conditionsof divine superiority. In such a being there is no dust, nor anygross thing; it must be finer than air, more impalpable than light,purer than essence--it is life in absolute purity.
"What now, O son of Hur? Knowing so much, shall I dispute withmyself or you about the unnecessaries--about the form of mysoul? Or where it is to abide? Or whether it eats and drinks?Or is winged, or wears this or that? No. It is more becoming totrust in God. The beautiful in this world is all from his handdeclaring the perfection of taste; he is the author of all form;he clothes the lily, he colors the rose, he distils the dew-drop,he makes the music of nature; in a word, he organized us for thislife, and imposed its conditions; and they are such guaranty to methat, trustful as a little child, I leave to him the organizationof my Soul, and every arrangement for the life after death.
I knowhe loves me."
The good man stopped and drank, and the hand carrying the cup tohis lips trembled; and both Iras and Ben-Hur shared his emotionand remained silent. Upon the latter a light was breaking. He wasbeginning to see, as never before, that there might be a spiritualkingdom of more import to men than any earthly empire; and thatafter all a Saviour would indeed be a more godly gift than thegreatest king.
"I might ask you now," said Balthasar, continuing, "whether thishuman life, so troubled and brief, is preferable to the perfectand everlasting life designed for the Soul? But take the question,and think of it for yourself, formulating thus: Supposing both tobe equally happy, is one hour more desirable than one year? Fromthat then advance to the final inquiry, what are threescore andten years on earth to all eternity with God? By-and-by, son of Hur,thinking in such manner, you will be filled with the meaning of thefact I present you next, to me the most amazing of all events, and inits effects the most sorrowful; it is that the very idea of life as aSoul is a light almost gone out in the world. Here and there, to besure, a philosopher may be found who will talk to you of a Soul,likening it to a principle; but because philosophers take nothingupon faith, they will not go the length of admitting a Soul to bea being, and on that account its purpose is compressed darknessto them.
"Everything animate has a mind measurable by its wants. Is thereto you no meaning in the singularity that power in full degree tospeculate upon the future was given to man alone? By the sign asI see it, God meant to make us know ourselves created for anotherand a better life, such being in fact the greatest need of ournature. But, alas! into what a habit the nations have fallen! Theylive for the day, as if the present were the all in all, and goabout saying, 'There is no to-morrow after death; or if there be,since we know nothing about it, be it a care unto itself.' So whenDeath calls them, 'Come,' they may not enter into enjoyment of theglorious after-life because of their unfitness. That is to say,the ultimate happiness of man was everlasting life in the societyof God. Alas, O son of Hur, that I should say it! but as well yonsleeping camel constant in such society as the holiest prieststhis day serving the highest altars in the most renowned temples.So much are men given to this lower earthly life! So nearly havethey forgotten that other which is to come!
"See now, I pray you, that which is to be saved to us.
"For my part, speaking with the holiness of truth, I would notgive one hour of life as a Soul for a thousand years of life asa man."
Here the Egyptian seemed to become unconscious of companionshipand fall away into abstraction.
"This life has its problems," he said, "and there are men whospend their days trying to solve them; but what are they to theproblems of the hereafter? What is there like knowing God? Not ascroll of the mysteries, but the mysteries themselves would forthat hour at least lie before me revealed; even the innermost andmost awful--the power which now we shrink from thought of--whichrimmed the void with shores, and lighted the darkness, and outof nothing appointed the universe. All places would be opened.I would be filled with divine knowledge; I would see all glories,taste all delights; I would revel in being. And if, at the end ofthe hour, it should please God to tell me, 'I take thee into myservice forever,' the furthest limit of desire would be passed;after which the attainable ambitions of life, and its joys ofwhatever kind, would not be so much as the tinkling of littlebells."
Balthasar paused as if to recover from very ecstasy of feeling;and to Ben-Hur it seemed the speech had been the delivery of aSoul speaking for itself.
"I pray pardon, son of Hur," the good man continued, with a bow thegravity of which was relieved by the tender look that followed it,"I meant to leave the life of a Soul, its conditions, pleasures,superiority, to your own reflection and finding out. The joy ofthe thought has betrayed me into much speech. I set out to show,though ever so faintly, the reason of my faith. It grieves me thatwords are so weak. But help yourself to truth. Consider first theexcellence of the existence which was reserved for us after death,and give heed to the feelings and impulses the thought is sure toawaken in you--heed them, I say, because they are your own Soulastir, doing what it can to urge you in the right way. Consider nextthat the afterlife has become so obscured as to justify callingit a lost light. If you find it, rejoice, O son of Hur--rejoiceas I do, though in beggary of words. For then, besides the greatgift which is to be saved to us, you will have found the need ofa Saviour so infinitely greater than the need of a king; and hewe are going to meet will not longer hold place in your hope awarrior with a sword or a monarch with a crown.
"A practical question presents itself--How shall we know him atsight? If you continue in your belief as to his character--thathe is to be a king as Herod was--of course you will keep on untilyou meet a man clothed in purple and with a sceptre. On the otherhand, he I look for will be one poor, humble, undistinguished--a manin appearance as other men; and the sign by which I will know himwill be never so simple. He will offer to show me and all mankindthe way to the eternal life; the beautiful pure Life of the Soul."
The company sat a moment in silence which was broken by Balthasar.
"Let us arise now," he said--"let us arise and set forward again.What I have said has caused a return of impatience to see himwho is ever in my thought; and if I seem to hurry you, O son ofHur--and you, my daughter--be that my excuse."
At his signal the slave brought them wine in a skin bottle;and they poured and drank, and shaking the lap-cloths out arose.
While the slave restored the tent and wares to the box under thehoudah, and the Arab brought up the horses, the three principalslaved themselves in the pool.
In a little while they were retracing their steps back throughthe wady, intending to overtake the caravan if it had passedthem by.
