Now, if in those days he promised them the Savior I saw--promised him as KING OF THE JEWS--the appearance must be according to the promise, if only for the word's sake.

Ah, thou seest the reason of my question at the gate!--thou seest, and I will no more of it, but pass on.

It may be, next, thou art regarding the dignity of the Child; if so, bethink thee--what is it to be a successor of Herod ?--by the world's standard of honor, what?
Could not God better by his beloved?
If thou canst think of the Almighty Father in want of a title, and stooping to borrow the inventions of men, why was I not bidden ask for a Caesar at once?
Oh, for the substance of that whereof we speak, look higher, I pray thee! Ask rather of what he whom we await shall be king; for I do tell, my son, that is the key to the mystery, which no man shall understand without the key." Balthasar raised his eyes devoutly.
"There is a kingdom on the earth, though it is not of it--a kingdom of wider bounds than the earth--wider than the sea and the earth, though they were rolled together as finest gold and spread by the beating of hammers.

Its existence is a fact as our hearts are facts, and we journey through it from birth to death without seeing it; nor shall any man see it until he hath first known his own soul; for the kingdom is not for him, but for his soul.

And in its dominion there is glory such as hath not entered imagination--original, incomparable, impossible of increase." "What thou sayest, father, is a riddle to me," said Ben-Hur.
"I never heard of such a kingdom." "Nor did I," said Ilderim.
"And I may not tell more of it," Balthasar added, humbly dropping his eyes.