The Other Wise Man

He who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul,
May keep the path, but will not reach the goal:
While he who walks in love will wander far,
Yet God will bring him where the blessed are.

You know the story of the Three Wise Men of the East, and how they travelled from far away to offer their gilts at the manger-cradle in Bethlehem. But have you never heard the story of The Other Wise Man who also saw the star in its rising, and set out to follow it, but did not arrive with his brethren in the presence of the young child Jesus? Of the great desire of this fourth pilgrim, and how it was denied, yet accomplished in the denial; of his many wanderings and the probations of his soul; of the long way of his seeking, and the strange way of his finding the One whom he sought?

“My three brothers are watching at the ancient Temple of the Seven Spheres at Barsippa, in Babylonia, and I am watching here. If the star shines again, they will wait for me at the temple, and then we will set out together for Jerusalem, to see and worship the promised one who shall be born the King of Israel. I believe the sign will come. I have made ready for the journey. I have sold my houses and possessions, and bought these three jewels—a sapphire a ruby and a pearl—to carry them as a tribute to the King.”

At last Tigranes said, “Artaban, this is a vain dream. It comes from too much looking at the stars and the cherishing of lofty thoughts. It would be wiser to spend the time m gathering money for the new fire-temple at Chala. No king will ever rise from the broken race of Israel, and no end will ever come to the eternal strife of light and darkness. He who looks for it is a chaser after shadows. Farewell.”

After days and nights of weary wanderings, he was detained in his journey by taking compassion on a poor perishing man lying across the road, to whom he gave of his bread and wine and a portion of healing herbs. When he reached the Temple of the Seven Spheres, he could discern no trace of his friends. At the edge of the terrace he saw a little piece of parchment. He caught it up and road, “We have waited past the midnight, and can delay no longer. We go to find the King. Follow us across the desert.”

“How can I cross the desert,” said he, “without food, and with a spent horse? I must return to Babylon, sell my sapphire, and buy a train of camels, and provisions for the journey. I may overtake my friends. Only God the merciful knows whether I shall not lose sight of the King because I tarried to show mercy.”

The next delay was occasioned by saving the life of a beautiful little child, which act cost him his ruby.

He turned his face to the east and prayed, “God of Truth, forgive me my sin! Two of my gifts are gone. I have spent for man that which was meant for God. Shall I ever be worthy to see the face of the King?”

I saw him moving among the throngs of men in populous Egypt, seeking everywhere for traces of the household that had come down from Bethlehem, and finding them under the spreading sycamore-trees of Heliopolis, and beneath the walls of the Roman fortress, of New Babylon beside the Nile, traces so faint and dim that they vanished before him continually, as footprints on the hard river-sand glisten for a moment with moisture and then disappear.

I saw him again at the foot of the pyramids, which lifted their sharp points into the intense saffron glow of the sunset sky, changeless monuments of the perishable glory and the imperishable hope of man. He looked up into the vast countenance of the crouching Sphnix, and vainly tried to read the meaning of her calm eyes and smiling mouth. Was it, indeed, the mockery of all effort and all aspiration, as Tigranes had said—the cruel jest of a riddle that has no answer, a search that can never succeed? Or was there a touch of pity and encouragement in the inscrutable smile —a promise that even the defeated should attain victory, and the disappointed should discover the prize, and the ignorant should be made wise, and the blind should see, and the wandering should come into the haven at last?

I saw him again in an obscure house of Alexandria, taking counsel “with a Hebrew rabbi. The venerable man, bending over the rolls of parchment on which the prophecies of Israel were written, read aloud the pathetic words which foretold the sufferings of the promised Messiah—the despised and rejected of men, the man of sorrows and the acquaintance of grief.

“And remember, my son,” said he, fixing his deep-set eyes upon the face of Artaban, “the King whom you seek is not to be found in a palace, nor among the rich and powerful. If the light of the world and the glory of Israel had been appointed to come with the greatness of earthly splendor, it must have appeared long ago. But the light for which the world is waiting is a new light, the glory that shall rise of patient and triumphant suffering. And the kingdom which is established forever is a new kingdom, the royalty of perfect, unconquerable love. I do not know how this shall come to pass, nor how the turbulent kings and peoples of earth shall be brought to acknowledge the Messiah and pay homage to him. But this I know. Those who seek Him will do well to look among the poor and lowly, the sorrowful and oppressed.”

So I saw The Other Wise Man again and again, travelling from place to place, and searching among the people of the dispersion with whom the little family from Bethlehem might, perhaps, have found a refuge. He passed through countries where famine lay heavy upon the land, and the poor were crying for bread. He made his dwelling in plague-stricken cities, where the sick were languishing in the bitter companionship of helpless misery. He visited the oppressed and the afflicted in the gloom of subterranean prisons, and the crowded wretchedness of slave-markets, and the weary toils of galley-ships. In all this populous and intricate world of anguish, though he found none to worship, he found many to help. He fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, healed the sick, and comforted the captive; and his years went by more swiftly than the weaver’s shuttle that flashes back and forth through the loom, while the web grows and the invisible pattern is completed. It seemed as if he had forgotten his quest. But once I saw him for a moment as he stood alone at sunrise, waiting at the gate of a Roman prison. He had taken from a secret resting-place in his bosom the pearl, the last of his jewels. As he looked at it, a mellower lustre, a soft and iridescent light, full of shifting gleams of azure and rose, trembled upon its surface. It seemed to have absorbed some reflection of the colors of the lost sapphire and ruby. So the profound, secret purpose of a noble life draws into itself the memories of past joy and past sorrow. All that has helped it, all that has hindered it, is tranformed by a subtle magic into its very essence. It becomes more luminous and precious the longer it is carried close to the warmth of the beating heart.

Three and thirty years of the life of Artaban had passed away, and he was still a pilgrim and a seeker after light. His hair, once darker than the cliffs of Zagros, was now white as the wintry snow that covered them. His eyes, that once flashed like flames of fire, were dull as embers smouldering among the ashes.

Worn, and weary, and ready to die, but still looking for the King, he had come at last to Jerusalem. There was a singular agitation visible in the multitude. The sky was veiled with a portentous gloom, and the currents of excitement seemed to flash through the crowd like the thrill which shakes the forest on the eve of a storm.

Artaban joined company with a group of people from his own country, and enquired of them the cause of this tumult, and where they were going.

“We are going,” they answered, “to the place called Golgotha, outside the walls, where there is to be an execution. Have you not heard what has, happened? Two famous robbers are to be crucified, and with them another, called Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has done many wonderful works among the people, so that they love him greatly. But the priests and elders have said that he must die, because he gave himself out to be the Son of God.”

How strangely these familiar words fell upon the tired heart of Artaban! They had led him for a lifetime over land and sea. And now they came to him darkly and mysteriously, like a message of despair. The King had arisen, but he had been denied and cast out. He was about to perish. Perhaps he was already dying.

But he said within himself, “The ways of God are stranger than the thoughts of men, and it may be that I shall find the King at last, in the hands of His enemies, and shall be in time to offer my pearl for His ransom before He dies.”

So the old man followed the multitude with slow and painful steps towards the Damascus gate of the city. Just beyond the entrance of the guard-house a troop of Macedonian soldiers came down the street dragging a young girl with torn dress and dishevelled hair. As the Magian paused to look at her with compassion, she broke suddenly from her tormentors, and threw herself at his feet, clasping him around the knees. She had seen his white cap and the winged circle on his breast. “Have pity on me,” she cried, “and save me for the sake of the God of Purity! I also am a daughter of the true religion which is taught by the Magi. My father was a merchant of Parthia, but is dead, and I am seized for his debts to be sold as a slave. Save me from a fate worse than death.”

Artaban trembled. Was this his great opportunity, or his last temptation. He could not tell. One thing only was clear in the darkness of his mind—it was the inevitable. And does not the inevitable come from God?

One thing only was sure to his divided heart—to rescue this helpless girl would be a true deed of love. And is not love the light of the soul?

He took the pearl from his bosom. Never had it seemed so luminous, so radiant, so full of tender, living lustre. He laid it in the hand of the slave.

“This is thy ransom, my daughter! It is the last of my treasures which I kept for the King.”

“While he spoke the darkness of the sky thickened, and shuddering tremors ran through the earth, heaving convulsively like the breast of one who struggles with a mighty grief.

The walls of the houses rocked to and fro, stones were loosened and crashed into the street. Dust-clouds filled the air. The soldiers fled in terror, reeling like drunken men. Artaban and the girl whom he had ransomed crouched helpless beneath the wall of the Prætorium. One more lingering pulsation of the earthquake quivered through the ground. A heavy tile, shaken from the roof, fell and struck the old man on the temple. He lay breathless and pale, with his gray head resting on the young girl’s shoulder, and the blood trickling from the wound. As she bent over him, fearing that he was dead, there came a voice through the twilight, very small and still, like music sounding from a distance, in which the notes are clear but the words are lost. The girl turned to see if some one had spoken from the window, but saw no one.

Then the old man’s lips began to move, as if in answer, and she heard him say in the Parthian tongue,—

“No, my Lord! For when saw I thee enhungered, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave the drink? “When saw I thee a stranger and took thee in? Or naked, and clothed thee? “When saw I thee sick and in prison, and came unto thee? Three and thirty years have I looked for thee; but I have never seen thy face, or ministered to thee, oh my King.”

He ceased, and the sweet voice came again. And again the maid heard it very faintly and far away. But now she understood the words:—

“Verily I say unto thee, inasmuch as thou hast done it unto the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me”

A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the pale face of Artaban, like the first ray of dawn on a snowy mountain-peak. One long, last breath of relief exhaled gently from his lips. His journey was ended. His treasures were accepted. The Other Wise Man had found the King.