Ben Hur (39 page)

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.

"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."