st attractive
to the observing eye. As it came close to the path he was travelling,
there was a seduction in its shade, and through the foliage he caught
the shining of what appeared a pretentious statue; so he turned aside,
and entered the cool retreat.

The grass was fresh and clean. The trees did not crowd each other;
and they were of every kind native to the East, blended well with
strangers adopted from far quarters; here grouped in exclusive
companionship palm-trees plumed like queens; there sycamores,
overtopping laurels of darker foliage; and evergreen oaks
rising verdantly, with cedars vast enough to be kings on Lebanon;
and mulberries; and terebinths so beautiful it is not hyperbole to
speak of them as blown from the orchards of Paradise.

The statue proved to be a Daphne of wondrous beauty. Hardly,
however, had he time to more than glance at her face: at the base
of the pedestal a girl and a youth were lying upon a tiger's skin
asleep in each other's arms; close by them the implements of their
service--his axe and sickle, her basket--flung carelessly upon a
heap of fading roses.

The exposure startled him. Back in the hush of the perfumed thicket
he discovered, as he thought, that the charm of the great Grove was
peace without fear, and almost yielded to it; now, in this sleep in
the day's broad glare--this sleep at the feet of Daphne--he read a
further chapter to which only the vaguest allusion is sufferable.
The law of the place was Love, but Love without Law.

And this was the sweet peace of Daphne!

This the life's end of her ministers!

For this kings and princes gave of their revenues!

For this a crafty priesthood subordinated nature--her birds and
brooks and lilies, the river, the labor of many hands, the sanctity
of altars, the fertile power of the sun!

It would be pleasant now to record that as Ben-Hur pursued his walk
assailed by such reflections, he yielded somewhat to sorrow for the
votaries of the great outdoor temple; especially for those who,
by personal service, kept it in a state so surpassingly lovely.
How they came to the condition was not any longer a mystery; the
motive, the influence, the inducement, were before him. Some there
were, no doubt, caught by the promise held out to their troubled
spirits of endless peace in a consecrated abode, to the beauty of
which, if they had not money, they could contribute their labor;
this class implied intellect peculiarly subject to hope