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THE STORY OF THE OTHER WISE MAN

By Henry vanDyke

NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER &BROTHERS

Copyright 1895, 1899, by HARPER &BROTHERS
——
All rights reserved

Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul,
May keep the path, but will not reach thegoal;
While he who walks in love may wander far,
Yet God will bring him where the blessedare.

Contents

           PREFACE……vii

           THE SIGN INTHE SKY……3

           BY THE WATERS OFBABYLON……25

           FOR THE SAKE OF ALITTLE CHILD……43

           IN THE HIDDEN WAY OF SORROW……55

           A PEARL OF GREAT PRICE……65

Preface

     IT is now some years since this little story wasset afloat on the sea of books. It is not a man-of-war, nor even a high-sided merchantman; only asmall, peaceful sailing-vessel. Yet it has had rather an adventurous voyage. Twice it has fallen intothe hands of pirates. The tides have carried it to far countries. It has been passed through thetranslator's port of entry into German, French, Armenian, Turkish, and perhaps some other foreignregions. Once I caught sight of it flying the outlandish flag of a brand-new phonetic language alongthe coasts of France; and once it was claimed by a dealer in antiquities as a long-lost legend of theOrient. Best of all, it has slipped quietly into many a far-away harbor that I have never seen, andfound a kindly welcome, and brought back messages of good cheer from unknown friends.

    Now it has turned home to be new-rigged and fitted for further voyaging. Before it issent out again I have been asked to tell where the story came from and what it means.

    I do not know where it came from—out of the air, perhaps. One thing is certain, itis not written in any other book, nor is it to be found among the ancient lore of the East. And yet Ihave never felt as if it were my own. It was a gift. It was sent to me; and it seemed as if I knew theGiver, though His name was not spoken.

     The year had been full of sicknessand sorrow. Every day brought trouble. Every night was tormented with pain. They are verylong—those nights when one lies awake, and hears the laboring heart pumping wearily at its task,and watches for the morning, not knowing whether it will ever dawn. They are not nights of fear; forthe thought of death grows strangely familiar when you have lived with it for a year. Besides, after atime you come to feel like a soldier who has been long standing still under fire; any change would bea relief. But they are lonely nights; they are very heavy nights. And their heaviest burden isthis:

     You must face the thought that your work in the world may be almostended, but you know that it is not nearly finished.

     You have not solved theproblems that perplexed you. You have not reached the goal that you aimed at. You have notaccomplished the great task that you set for yourself. You are still on the way; and perhaps yourjourney must end now,—nowhere,—in the dark.

     Well, it was in oneof these long, lonely nights that this story came to me. I had studied and loved the curious tales ofthe Three Wise Men of the East as they are told in the "Golden Legend" of Jacobus de Voragine andother mediaeval books. But of the Fourth Wise Man I had never heard until that night. Then I saw himdistinctly, moving through the shadows in a little circle of light. His countenance was as clear asthe memory of my father's face as I saw it for the last time a few months before. The narrative of hisjourneyings and trials and disappointments ran without a break. Even certain sentences came to mecomplete and unforgettable, clear-cut like a cameo. All that I had to do was to follow Artaban, stepby step, as the tale went on, from the beginning to the end of his pilgrimage.

    Perhaps this may explain some things in the story. I have been asked many times why I made theFourth Wise Man tell a lie, in the cottage at Bethlehem, to save the little child'slife.

     I did not make him tell a lie.

     WhatArtaban said to the soldiers he said for himself, because he could not help it.

    Is a lie ever justifiable? Perhaps not. But may it not sometimes seem inevitable?

    And if it were a sin, might not a man confess it, and be pardoned for it more easily thanfor the greater sin of spiritual selfishness, or indifference, or the betrayal of innocent blood? Thatis what I saw Artaban do. That is what I heard him say. All through his life he was trying to do thebest that he could. It was not perfect. But there are some kinds of failure that are better thansuccess.

     Though the story of the Fourth Wise Man came to me suddenly andwithout labor, there was a great deal of study and toil to be done before it could be written down. Anidea arrives without effort; a form can only be wrought out by patient labor. If your story is worthtelling, you ought to love it enough to be willing to work over it until it is true,—true notonly to the ideal, but true also to the real. The light is a gift; but the local color can only beseen by one who looks for it long and steadily. Artaban went with me while I toiled through a score ofvolumes of ancient history and travel. I saw his figure while I journeyed on the motionless sea of thedesert and in the strange cities of the East.

     And now that his story istold, what does it mean?

     How can I tell? What does life mean? If themeaning could be put into a sentence there would be no need of telling the story.

                                      HENRY VAN DYKE.

YOU know the story of the Three Wise Men of the East, and how theytraveled from far away to offer their gifts at the manger-cradle in Bethlehem. But have you ever heardthe story of the Other Wise Man, who also saw the star in