tar in the east, and have come to worship
him.' I could not understand, but followed them to the Damascus
Gate; and of every person they met on the way--of the guard at the
Gate, even--they asked the question. All who heard it were amazed
like me. In time I forgot the circumstance, though there was much
talk of it as a presage of the Messiah. Alas, alas! What children
we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are
often centuries apart. You have seen Balthasar?"

"And heard him tell his story," said Ben-Hur.

"A miracle!--a very miracle!" cried Simonides. "As he told it
to me, good my master, I seemed to hear the answer I had so long
waited; God's purpose burst upon me. Poor will the King be when
he comes--poor and friendless; without following, without armies,
without cities or castles; a kingdom to be set up, and Rome reduced
and blotted out. See, see, O my master! thou flushed with strength,
thou trained to arms, thou burdened with riches; behold the opportunity
the Lord hath sent thee! Shall not his purpose be thine? Could a man be
born to a more perfect glory?"

Simonides put his whole force in the appeal.

"But the kingdom, the kingdom!" Ben-Hur answered, eagerly.
"Balthasar says it is to be of souls."

The pride of the Jew was strong in Simonides, and therefore the
slightly contemptuous curl of the lip with which he began his reply:

"Balthasar has been a witness of wonderful things--of miracles,
O my master; and when he speaks of them, I bow with belief,
for they are of sight and sound personal to him. But he is a son
of Mizraim, and not even a proselyte. Hardly may he be supposed
to have special knowledge by virtue of which we must bow to him
in a matter of God's dealing with our Israel. The prophets had
their light from Heaven directly, even as he had his--many to one,
and Jehovah the same forever. I must believe the prophets.--Bring
me the Torah, Esther."

He proceeded without waiting for her.

"May the testimony of a whole people be slighted, my master? Though
you travel from Tyre, which is by the sea in the north, to the
capital of Edom, which is in the desert south, you will not find
a lisper of the Shema, an alms-giver in the Temple, or any one who
has ever eaten of the lamb of the Passover, to tell you the kingdom
the King is coming to build for us, the children of the covenant,
is other than of this world, like our father David's. Now where
got they the faith, ask you! We wi