The Lost Word | Page 6

thee
nothing. Though thou be one of the wise men, this shall be no
hindrance to thee. Only let thy coming be to honour and adore, with
trembling joy, the Son of God, to whose name be glory, on this His
birthday, and forever and forever."
The soul of Hermas did not answer to the musician's touch. The strings
of his heart were slack and soundless; there was no response within him.
He was neither shepherd, nor king, nor wise man, only an unhappy,
dissatisfied, questioning youth. He was out of sympathy with the eager
preacher, the joyous hearers. In their harmony he had no part. Was it
for this that he had forsaken his inheritance and narrowed his life to
poverty and hardship? What was it all worth?
The gracious prayers with which the young converts were blessed and
dismissed before the sacrament sounded hollow in his ears. Never had
he felt so utterly lonely as in that praying throng. He went out with his
companions like a man departing from a banquet where all but he had
been fed.
"Farewell, Hermas," they cried, as he turned from them at the door. But
he did not look back, nor wave his hand. He was alone already in his
heart.
When he entered the broad Avenue of the Colonnades, the sun had
already topped the eastern hills, and the ruddy light was streaming
through the long double row of archways and over the pavements of
crimson marble. But Hermas turned his back to the morning, and
walked with his shadow before him.

The street began to swarm and whirl and quiver with the motley life of
a huge city: beggars and jugglers, dancers and musicians, gilded youths
in their chariots, and daughters of joy looking out from their windows,
all intoxicated with the mere delight of living and the gladness of a new
day. The pagan populace of Antioch-- reckless, pleasure-loving,
spendthrift--were preparing for the Saturnalia. But all this Hermas had
renounced. He cleft his way through the crowd slowly, like a reluctant
swimmer weary of breasting the tide.
At the corner of the street where the narrow, populous Lane of the
Camel-drivers crossed the Colonnades, a story-teller had bewitched a
circle of people around him. It was the same old tale of love and
adventure that many generations have listened to; but the lively fancy
of the hearers lent it new interest, and the wit of the improviser drew
forth sighs of interest and shouts of laughter.
A yellow-haired girl on the edge of the throng turned, as Hermas
passed, and smiled in his face. She put out her hand and caught him by
the sleeve.
"Stay," she said, "and laugh a bit with us. I know who you are-- the son
of Demetrius. You must have bags of gold. Why do you look so black?
Love is alive yet."
Hermas shook off her hand, but not ungently.
"I don't know what you mean," he said. "You are mistaken in me. I am
poorer than you are."
But as he passed on, he felt the warm touch of her fingers through the
cloth on his arm. It seemed as if she had plucked him by the heart.
He went out by the Western Gate, under the golden cherubim that the
Emperor Titus had stolen from the ruined Temple of Jerusalem and
fixed upon the arch of triumph. He turned to the left, and climbed the
hill to the road that led to the Grove of Daphne.
In all the world there was no other highway as beautiful. It wound for

five miles along the foot of the mountains, among gardens and villas,
plantations of myrtles and mulberries, with wide outlooks over the
valley of Orontes and the distant, shimmering sea.
The richest of all the dwellings was the House of the Golden Pillars, the
mansion of Demetrius. He had won the favor of the apostate Emperor
Julian, whose vain efforts to restore the worship of the heathen gods,
some twenty years ago, had opened an easy way to wealth and power
for all who would mock and oppose Christianity. Demetrius was not a
sincere fanatic like his royal master; but he was bitter enough in his
professed scorn of the new religion, to make him a favourite at the
court where the old religion was in fashion. He had reaped a rich
reward of his policy, and a strange sense of consistency made him more
fiercely loyal to it than if it had been a real faith. He was proud of being
called "the friend of Julian"; and when his son joined himself to the
Christians, and acknowledged the unseen God, it seemed like an insult
to his father's success. He drove the boy from his door and disinherited
him.
The