Ben-Hur Page #8

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a novel by Lew Wallace, published by Harper and Brothers on November 12, 1880, and considered "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century". It became a best-selling American novel, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin in sales.

• History
• Religion, Spirituality & New Age

								

in prayer, and to make my appeals pure and strong, like you,
my brethren, I went out of the beaten ways, I went where man
had not been, where only God was. Above the fifth cataract,
above the meeting of rivers in Sennar, up the Bahr el Abiad,
into the far unknown of Africa, I went. There, in the morning,
a mountain blue as the sky flings a cooling shadow wide over the
western desert, and, with its cascades of melted snow, feeds a
broad lake nestling at its base on the east. The lake is the
mother of the great river. For a year and more the mountain gave
me a home. The fruit of the palm fed my body, prayer my spirit.
One night I walked in the orchard close by the little sea. 'The world
is dying. When wilt thou come? Why may I not see the redemption,
O God?' So I prayed. The glassy water was sparkling with stars.
One of them seemed to leave its place, and rise to the surface,
where it became a brilliancy burning to the eyes. Then it moved
towards me, and stood over my head, apparently in hand's reach.
I fell down and hid my face. A voice, not of the earth, said,
'Thy good works have conquered. Blessed art thou, O son of Mizraim!
The redemption cometh. With two others, from the remotenesses of
the world, thou shalt see the Saviour, and testify for him. In the
morning arise, and go meet them. And when ye have all come to the
holy city of Jerusalem, ask of the people, Where is he that is born
King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the East and are
sent to worship him. Put all thy trust in the Spirit which will
guide thee.'

"And the light became an inward illumination not to be doubted,
and has stayed with me, a governor and a guide. It led me down the
river to Memphis, where I made ready for the desert. I bought my
camel, and came hither without rest, by way of Suez and Kufileh,
and up through the lands of Moab and Ammon. God is with us, O my
brethren!"

He paused, and thereupon, with a prompting not their own, they all
arose, and looked at each other.

"I said there was a purpose in the particularity with which we
described our people and their histories," so the Egyptian
proceeded. "He we go to find was called 'King of the Jews;'
by that name we are bidden to ask for him. But, now that we
have met, and heard from each other, we may know him to be
the Redeemer, not of the Jews alone, but of all the nations
of the earth. The patriarch who survived the Flood had with him
three sons, and their families, by whom the world was repeopled.
From the old Aryana-Vaejo, the well-remembered Region of Delight in
the heart of Asia, they parted. India and the far East received the
children of the first; the descendant of the youngest, through the
North, streamed into Europe; those of the second overflowed the
deserts about the Red Sea, passing into Africa; and though most
of the latter are yet dwellers in shifting tents, some of them
became builders along the Nile."

By a simultaneous impulse the three joined hands.

"Could anything be more divinely ordered?" Balthasar continued.
"When we have found the Lord, the brothers, and all the generations
that have succeeded them, will kneel to him in homage with us. And
when we part to go our separate ways, the world will have learned
a new lesson--that Heaven may be won, not by the sword, not by
human wisdom, but by Faith, Love, and Good Works."

There was silence, broken by sighs and sanctified with tears;
for the joy that filled them might not be stayed. It was the
unspeakable joy of souls on the shores of the River of Life,
resting with the Redeemed in God's presence.

Presently their hands fell apart, and together they went out of
the tent. The desert was still as the sky. The sun was sinking
fast. The camels slept.

A little while after, the tent was struck, and, with the remains of
the repast, restored to the cot; then the friends mounted, and set
out single file, led by the Egyptian. Their course was due west,
into the chilly night. The camels swung forward in steady trot,
keeping the line and the intervals so exactly that those following
seemed to tread in the tracks of the leader. The riders spoke not
once.

By-and-by the moon came up. And as the three tall white figures sped,
with soundless tread, through the opalescent light, they appeared like
specters flying from hateful shadows. Suddenly, in the air before
them, not farther up than a low hill-top flared a lambent flame;
as they looked at it, the apparition contracted into a focus of
dazzling lustre. Their hearts beat fast; their souls thrilled;
and they shouted as with one voice, "The Star! the Star! God is
with us!"




CHAPTER VI


In an aperture of the western wall of Jerusalem hang the "oaken
valves" called the Bethlehem or Joppa Gate. The area outside of
them is one of the notable places of the city. Long before David
coveted Zion there was a citadel there. When at last the son of
Jesse ousted the Jebusite, and began to build, the site of the
citadel became the northwest corner of the new wall, defended by
a tower much more imposing than the old one. The location of the
gate, however, was not disturbed, for the reasons, most likely,
that the roads which met and merged in front of it could not
well be transferred to any other point, while the area outside
had become a recognized market-place. In Solomon's day there was
great traffic at the locality, shared in by traders from Egypt
and the rich dealers from Tyre and Sidon. Nearly three thousand
years have passed, and yet a kind of commerce clings to the spot.
A pilgrim wanting a pin or a pistol, a cucumber or a camel, a house
or a horse, a loan or a lentil, a date or a dragoman, a melon or
a man, a dove or a donkey, has only to inquire for the article at
the Joppa Gate. Sometimes the scene is quite animated, and then
it suggests, What a place the old market must have been in the
days of Herod the Builder! And to that period and that market
the reader is now to be transferred.

Following the Hebrew system, the meeting of the wise men described
in the preceding chapters took place in the afternoon of the
twenty-fifth day of the third month of the year; that is say,
on the twenty-fifth day of December. The year was the second of
the 193d Olympiad, or the 747th of Rome; the sixty-seventh of
Herod the Great, and the thirty-fifth of his reign; the fourth
before the beginning of the Christian era. The hours of the day,
by Judean custom, begin with the sun, the first hour being the
first after sunrise; so, to be precise; the market at the Joppa
Gate during the first hour of the day stated was in full session,
and very lively. The massive valves had been wide open since dawn.
Business, always aggressive, had pushed through the arched entrance
into a narrow lane and court, which, passing by the walls of
the great tower, conducted on into the city. As Jerusalem is
in the hill country, the morning air on this occasion was not a
little crisp. The rays of the sun, with their promise of warmth,
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