"And again, there are some poor, and distrusting, and fearful ones, whom our enemies persuade that it is a daring presumption for such as they to pretend they have had especial communication with the King, and even at times torment them into thinking the King's own jewel tinsel. So that, in looking and looking to see if it is a true jewel, they forget to clasp it on their hearts, or drink the living water, or look through the magic glass."
"That is a strange delusion," I remarked.
"Yes," he said; "but it is easily cured, if once we can persuade them to look through the jewel instead of looking at it; for then they see the King with the jewel on his breast, and the smile in his eyes, and their doubts melt away in floods of happy tears.
"This I know," he added, "for I was once one of these. I had neglected to use my jewel; and then an enemy, in the guise of a friend, persuaded me to question its genuineness; but I ventured to look through it once again, and since then, I do not look at my jewel, but gaze through it to the King's heart; and from that day, my jewel has not grown dim."
"But you spoke of some who lost it altogether," I said.
"They are those," he said, solemnly, "who have deliberately yielded it up to enter the service of the usurper, or those who, in base timidity, have cast it away in denying our King."
"And for such can it ever be recovered?" I said.
"For one such, as disloyal as any, it was," he answered. "He went out and wept bitterly; the King forgave him, and in time the treasure was restored to him, and he became one of our most glorious veterans."
"How is the jewel to be recovered if lost?" I asked.
"By going to the place where first it was found," he replied. "There, on the lonely beach, before daybreak, it must be sought, morning after morning, until the sun's first rays reveal it once more glittering among the shingle as at first. But the waiting is often longer than it was at first."