least, would not they
who know that the qualities mentioned--love, sorrow, pity--are the
results of a consciousness of strength to bear suffering oftener
than strength to do; such has been the might of martyrs and devotees
and the myriads written down in saintly calendars. And such, indeed,
was the air of this one.

Slowly he drew near--nearer the three.

Now Ben-Hur, mounted and spear in hand, was an object to claim the
glance of a king; yet the eyes of the man approaching were all the
time raised above him--and not to Iras, whose loveliness has been
so often remarked, but to Balthasar, the old and unserviceable.

The hush was profound.

Presently the Nazarite, still pointing with his staff, cried, in a
loud voice,

"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!"

The many standing still, arrested by the action of the speaker,
and listening for what might follow, were struck with awe by words
so strange and past their understanding; upon Balthasar they were
overpowering. He was there to see once more the Redeemer of men.
The faith which had brought him the singular privileges of the
time long gone abode yet in his heart; and if now it gave him
a power of vision above that of his fellows--a power to see and
know him for whom he was looking--better than calling the power
a miracle, let it be thought of as the faculty of a soul not yet
entirely released from the divine relations to which it had been
formerly admitted, or as the fitting reward of a life in that age
so without examples of holiness--a life itself a miracle. The ideal
of his faith was before him, perfect in face, form, dress, action,
age; and he was in its view, and the view was recognition. Ah,
now if something should happen to identify the stranger beyond
all doubt!

And that was what did happen.

Exactly at the fitting moment, as if to assure the trembling
Egyptian, the Nazarite repeated the outcry,

"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!"

Balthasar fell upon his knees. For him there was no need of explanation;
and as if the Nazarite knew it, he turned to those more immediately about
him staring in wonder, and continued:

"This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred
before me, for he was before me. And I knew him not: but that
he should be manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing
with water. I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove,
and it abode upon h