Page:Ben-Hur a tale of the Christ.djvu/340

Rh &quot;What see you, O my master?&quot;

&quot;Rome!&quot; he answered, gloomily—&quot;Rome, and her legions. I have dwelt with them in their camps. I know them.&quot;

&quot;Ah!&quot; said Simonides. &quot;Thou shalt be a master of legions for the King, with millions to choose from.&quot;

&quot;Millions!&quot; cried Ben-Hur.

Simonides sat a moment thinking.

&quot;The question of power should not trouble you,&quot; he next said.

Ben-Hur looked at him inquiringly.

&quot;You were seeing the lowly King in the act of coming to his own,&quot; Simonides answered—&quot; seeing him on the right hand, as it were, and on the left the brassy legions of Caesar, and you were asking, What can he do?&quot;

&quot;It was my very thought.&quot;

&quot;O my master!&quot; Simonides continued. &quot;You do not know how strong our Israel is. You think of him as a sorrowful old man weeping by the rivers of Babylon. But go up to Jerusalem next Passover, and stand on the Xystus or in the Street of Barter, and see him as he is. The promise of the Lord to father Jacob coming out of Padan-Aram was a law under which our people have not ceased multiplying—not even in captivity; they grew under foot of the Egyptian; the clench of the Roman has been but wholesome nurture to them; now they are indeed 'a nation, and a company of nations.' Nor that only, my master; in fact, to measure the strength of Israel—which is, in fact, measuring what the King can do—you shall not bide solely by the rule of natural increase, but add thereto the other—I mean the spread of the faith, which will carry you to the far and near of the whole known earth. Further, the habit is, I know, to think and speak of Jerusalem as Israel, which may be likened to our finding an embroidered shred, and holding it up as a magisterial robe of Cæsar's. Jerusalem is but a stone of the Temple, or the heart in the body. Turn from beholding the legions, strong though they be, and count the hosts of the faithful waiting the old alarm, 'To your tents, O Israel!'—count the many in Persia, children of those who chose not to