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Title: The Story of the Other Wise Man

Author: Henry van Dyke

Release Date: January 11, 2004 [eBook #10679]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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THE STORY OF THE OTHER WISE MAN

BY

HENRY VAN DYKE

[Illustration: "IT IS THE SIGN" HE SAID]

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE SIGN IN THE SKY

BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

FOR THE SAKE OF A LITTLE CHILD

IN THE HIDDEN WAY OF SORROW

A PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

ILLUSTRATIONS

"'IT IS THE SIGN,' HE SAID"

"HE CAUGHT IT UP AND READ"

"'THERE IS NONE HERE SAVE ME"'

"HE HEALED THE SICK"

"THE OLD MAN FOLLOWED THE MULTITUDE"

"THE OTHER WISE MAN HAD FOUND THE KING"

_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 may 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 gifts at the manger-cradle in
Bethlehem. But have you ever heard the story of the Other Wise Man, who
also saw the star in its rising, and set out to follow it, yet 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--I would tell the tale as I have heard
fragments of it in the Hall of Dreams, in the palace of the Heart of
Man.

THE SIGN IN THE SKY

In the days when Augustus Caesar was master of many kings and Herod
reigned in Jerusalem, there lived in the city of Ecbatana, among the
mountains of Persia, a certain man named Artaban, the Median. His house
stood close to the outermost of the seven walls which encircled the
royal t