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 and fear; but the great body of the faithful could not be classed with such.
Apollo's nets were wide, and their meshes small; and hardly may one tell what all his fishermen landed: this less for that they cannot be described than because they ought not to be.

Enough that the mass were of the sybarites of the world, and of the herds in number vaster and in degree lower--devotees of the unmixed sensualism to which the East was almost wholly given.

Not to any of the exaltations--not to the singing-god, or his unhappy mistress; not to any philosophy requiring for its enjoyment the calm of retirement, nor to any service for the comfort there is in religion, nor to love in its holier sense--were they abiding their vows.

Good reader, why shall not the truth be told here?
Why not learn that, at this age, there were in all earth but two peoples capable of exaltations of the kind referred to--those who lived by the law of Moses, and those who lived by the law of Brahma.