ladness when thou shalt have lost thy power
here. The year is short, the work is long; therefore be earnest and
energetic." The king followed this advice. He sent workmen and materials
to the desolate island, and before the close of his temporary power it
had become a blooming, pleasant, and attractive spot. The rulers who had
preceded him had anticipated the close of their power with dread, or
smothered all thought of it in revelry; but he looked forward to it as a
day of joy, when he should enter upon a career of permanent peace and
happiness. The day came; the freed slave who had been made a king was
deprived of his authority; with his power he lost his royal garments;
naked he was placed upon a ship, and its sails were set for the desolate
island. When he approached its shores, however, the people whom he had
sent there came to meet him with music, song, and great joy. They made
him a prince among them, and he lived ever after in pleasantness and
peace.

The Talmudist thus explains this beautiful parable of the Desolate
Island: The wealthy man of kindly disposition is God, and the slave to
whom he gave freedom is the soul which he gives to man. The island at
which the slave arrives is the world: naked and weeping he appears to
his parents, who are the inhabitants that greet him warmly and make him
their king. The friends who tell him of the ways of the country are his
good inclinations. The year of his reign is his span of life, and the
desolate island is the future world, which he must beautify by good
deeds--the workmen and materials--or else live lonely and desolate for
ever.[91]

[91] This is similar to the 10th parable in the spiritual
romance of Barlaam and Joasaph, written in Greek,
probably in the first half of the 7th century, and
ascribed to a monk called John of Damascus. Most of the
matter comprised in this interesting work (which has not
been translated into English) was taken from well-known
Buddhist sources, and M. Zotenberg and other eminent
scholars are of the opinion that it was first composed,
probably in Egypt, before the promulgation of Islam. The
10th parable is to this effect: The citizens of a
certain great city had an ancient custom, to take a
stranger and obscure man, who knew nothing of the city's
laws and traditions, and to make him king with absolute
power for a year's space; the