k
swelled and throbbed. At the conclusion he raised his suffused
eyes in thanksgiving and prayer. He asked no questions, yet had
no doubts.

"Thou hast been very good to me, O God," he said. "Give me, I pray
thee, to see the Saviour again, and worship him, and thy servant
will 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 seemed
so actual and so near by; it was as if he were there bending over
them or sitting at their side--a Friend whose favors were to be
had by the most unceremonious asking--a Father to whom all his
children were alike in love--Father, not more of the Jew than of
the Gentile--the Universal Father, who needed no intermediates,
no rabbis, no priests, no teachers. The idea that such a God might
send mankind a Saviour instead of a king appeared to Ben-Hur in a
light not merely new, but so plain that he could almost discern
both the greater want of such a gift and its greater consistency
with 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 be
a 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 to
me 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 that
spoke to me in my dreams was it; but other than that I have no
revelation."

"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 opinion
now. I see the divergence in our faith. You are going to meet a
king 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 either
too high for quick discernment or too subtle for simple expression.

"Let me try, O son of Hur," he said, directly, "and help you to a
clear understanding of my belief; then it may be, seeing how the
spiritual kingdom I expect him to set up can be more excellent in
every sense than anything of mere Caesarean splendor, you will better
understand the reason of the inter