“We may know by the use he makes of it. Can you tell me any ill he has done?”
“No.”
“By that sign then I answer, He has his power from God.”
It is not an easy thing to shake off in a moment the expectations nurtured through years until they have become essentially a part of us; and though Ben-Hur asked himself what the vanities of the world were to such a one, his ambition was obdurate and would not down. He persisted as men do yet every day in measuring the Christ by himself. How much better if we measured ourselves by the Christ!
Naturally, the mother was the first to think of the cares of life.
“What shall we do now, my son? Where shall we go?”
Then Ben-Hur, recalled to duty, observed how completely every trace of the scourge had disappeared from his restored people; that each had back her perfection of person; that, as with Naaman when he came up out of the water, their flesh had come again like unto the flesh of a little child; and he took off his cloak, and threw it over Tirzah.
“Take it,” he said, smiling; “the eye of the stranger would have shunned you before, now it shall not offend you.”
The act exposed a sword belted to his side.
“Is it a time of war?” asked the mother, anxiously.