The Blue Flower [45]
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 acquainted with grief.
"And remember, my son," said he, fixing his eyes upon the
face of Artaban, "the King whom thou seekest 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 splendour, it must have
appeared long ago. For no son of Abraham will ever again
rival the power which Joseph had in the palaces of Egypt, or
the magnificence of Solomon throned between the lions in
Jerusalem. But the light for which the world is waiting is a new
light, the glory that shall rise out of patient and triumphant
suffering. And the kingdom which is to be established forever is
a new kingdom, the royalty of 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 the lowly, the sorrowful and the 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 toil 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, and healed the sick,
and comforted the captive; and his years passed more swiftly than
the weaver's shuttle that flashes back and forth through the loom
while the web grows and the pattern is completed.
It seemed almost 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 lost sapphire and ruby. So the 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 transfused 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.
Then, at last, while I was thinking of this pearl, and of
its meaning, I heard the end of the story of the Other Wise
Man.
V
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 for the last time to Jerusalem. He had
often visited the holy city before, and had searched all its
lanes and crowded bevels and black prisons without finding any
trace of the family of Nazarenes who had fled from Bethlehem
long ago. But now it seemed as if he must make one more
effort, and something whispered in his heart that, at last, he
might succeed.
It was the season of the Passover. The city was thronged
with strangers. The children of Israel, scattered in far lands,
had returned to the Temple for the great feast, and there had
been a confusion of tongues in the