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Ben-Hur: a Tale of the Christ

By LEW WALLACE Condensation by PROF. WILLIAM FENWICK HARRIS "THE workmen put their hands to the cross and carried it, burden and all, to the place of planting. At a word they dropped the tree into the hole; and the body of the Nazarene also dropped heavily and hung by the bleeding hands. Still no cry of pain--only the exclamation divinest of all recorded exclamations, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' The cross, reared now above all other objects, and standing singly out against the sky, was greeted with a burst of delight; and all who could see and read the writing upon the board over the Nazarene's head made haste to decipher it. Soon as read, the legend was adopted by them and communicated, and presently the whole mighty con-course was ringing the salutation from side to side, and repeating it with laughter and groans: "'King of the Jews! Hail, King of the Jews!' "The sun was rising rapidly to noon; the hills bared their brown breasts lovingly to it; the more distant mountains rejoiced in the purple with which it so regally dressed them. In the city the temples, palaces, towers, pinnacles, and all points of beauty and prominence seemed to lift themselves into the unrivaled brilliance, as if they knew the pride they were giving the many who from time to time turned to look at them. Suddenly a dimness began to fill the sky and cover the earth--at first no more than a scarce-perceptible fading of the day; a twilight out of time; an evening gliding in upon the splendors of noon. But it deepened, and directly drew attention, whereat the noise of the shouting and laughter fell off, and men, doubting their senses, gazed at one another curiously; then they looked at the sun again; then at the mountains, getting farther away; at the sky and the near landscape, sinking in shadow; at the hill upon which the tragedy was enacting; and from all these they gazed at one another again, and turned pale, and held their peace. "'It is only a mist or passing cloud,' Simonides said, soothingly, to Esther, who was alarmed. 'It will brighten presently.' "Ben-Hur did not think so. "'It is not a mist or a cloud,' he said. 'The spirits who live in the air--the prophets and saints--are at work in mercy to themselves and nature. I say to you, O Simonides, truly as God lives, He who hangs yonder is the Son of God.' "And leaving Simonides lost in wonder at such a speech from him, he went where Balthazar was kneeling near by, and laid his hand upon the good man's shoulder. "'O wise Egyptian, hearken! Thou alone wert right--the Nazarene is indeed the Son of God.' "Balthazar drew him down to him and replied, feebly, 'I saw Him a child in the manger where He was first laid; it is not strange that I knew Him sooner than thou: but, oh, that I should live to see this day! Would that I had died with my brethren! Happy Melchior! Happy Gaspar!" "'Comfort thee!' said Ben-Hur. 'Doubtless they too are here.'" Within the frame of the story of Christ is told the tale of Ben-Hur, beginning with the appearance of the three Wise Men, Balthazar, Melchior, and Gaspar, and ending with the sublime tragedy on Golgotha. From the days of the scenes at the manger until the culmination of the great story, the figure of Christ appears but once, and that for a moment, but over all that happens in the intervening years hovers the gentle spirit; thrilling as the episodes are in themselves, strongly as the characters are portrayed, they are but a preparation for what is to follow, a mere worldly setting for Him who was too great for all save a few to understand at that time. Some twenty-one years after the scenes at the manger, a young Jew, Ben-Hur, a prince in Jerusalem, rich, happy, ambitious, was standing by a parapet of his palace, watching the progress of Valerius Gratus, imperial governor of Judea. As the Roman passed beneath the wall amid the jeers and insults of the Jews, the young prince leaned far out to see the new governor, a loose tile was displaced, and, as bitter fate would have it, fell full upon the governor. The accident was not fatal, but it was an opportunity for exemplary justice, especially as the estates of the Jews were very desirable to the governor and his friend Messala, hitherto almost brother to Ben-Hur though the latter had been. The unhappy Jew was sent as a rower to the galleys, where the limit of life was at most but a year. His mother and sister were immured in a secret cell in the Tower of Antonia, where they were doomed to the fate of lepers. The only act of kindness Ben-Hur could remember during the years that followed was on the day he was dragged to the galleys. "The hand laid kindly upon his shoulder awoke the unfortunate man, and, looking up, he saw a face he never forgot--the face of a boy about his own age, shaded by locks of yellowish bright chestnut hair; a face lighted by dark-blue eyes, at the time so soft, so appealing, so full of love and holy purpose, that they had all the power of command and will." That was in Nazareth.