indle your faith in the God of Purity, even as this fire has been
rekindled on the altar. We worship not the fire, but Him of whom it is
the chosen symbol, because it is the purest of all created things. It
speaks to us of one who is Light and Truth. Is it not so, my father?"

"It is well said, my son," answered the venerable Abgarus. "The
enlightened are never idolaters. They lift the veil of the form and go
in to the shrine of the reality, and new light and truth are coming to
them continually through the old symbols." "Hear me, then, my father
and my friends," said Artaban, very quietly, "while I tell you of the
new light and truth that have come to me through the most ancient of all
signs. We have searched the secrets of nature together, and studied the
healing virtues of water and fire and the plants. We have read also the
books of prophecy in which the future is dimly foretold in words that
are hard to understand. But the highest of all learning is the knowledge
of the stars. To trace their courses is to untangle the threads of the
mystery of life from the beginning to the end. If we could follow them
perfectly, nothing would be hidden from us. But is not our knowledge of
them still incomplete? Are there not many stars still beyond our
horizon--lights that are known only to the dwellers in the far
south-land, among the spice-trees of Punt and the gold mines of Ophir?"

There was a murmur of assent among the listeners.

"The stars," said Tigranes, "are the thoughts of the Eternal. They are
numberless. But the thoughts of man can be counted, like the years
of his life. The wisdom of the Magi is the greatest of all wisdoms on
earth, because it knows its own ignorance. And that is the secret of
power. We keep men always looking and waiting for a new sunrise. But we
ourselves know that the darkness is equal to the light, and that the
conflict between them will never be ended."

"That does not satisfy me," answered Artaban, "for, if the waiting must
be endless, if there could be no fulfilment of it, then it would not be
wisdom to look and wait. We should become like those new teachers of the
Greeks, who say that there is no truth, and that the only wise men are
those who spend their lives in discovering and exposing the lies that
have been believed in the world. But the new sunrise will certainly dawn
in the appointed time. Do not our own books tell us that this will come
to pass, and that men will see the brightness