Months passed by and the little boy of Tarsus grew stronger and more eager and earnest. His father had sailed from the port of Messina for Tyre and Ptolemais and CÆsarea, on his way to Jerusalem to keep the Passover in the Holy Land. Little Saul had begged to be taken with him that he might see the Temple and stand on the very ground over which the great heroes of his race had walked, but he was told that he must wait until he was a few years older and then he should go to Jerusalem to study with a great Rabbi who could answer all his questions. For a long time he had gazed at the sky where the sun had gone down over the Taurus. He was really not looking at anything—he was just gazing off into space and wondering. He wondered whether he would ever see the world beyond those mountains, the world he had heard men talk about, the world of Asia and Greece and Rome. Then he turned to look toward the dim, yet shimmering peaks in the East and he wondered whether he would some day climb those ranges and go through the pass into Syria and on into the land he loved best—the real world of his own race.

He had not yet read any of the stories of Greece. He had dimly heard of the Trojan war, but it was only a name of little meaning. Theseus and Jason and Achilles and Ulysses were not his heroes. They were never mentioned in his home, though he sometimes heard the boys in the street speak of them. His heroes had all lived over the other mountains. Their names he heard almost every day. They were household words. He sometimes made believe that he was David and he would run with a little hand sling and kill again the mighty Philistine giant that threatened his people. When he climbed a high hill-top he imagined himself Moses on Nebo, looking over Jordan on the wonderful land of promise, and every peak covered with a cloud that looked like smoke seemed to him once more Sinai, with the Lord above giving the law in the darkness and the thunder. He wished he could see the Seraphim as Isaiah did, with two wings over their faces, and two wings all the way down to their feet and two wings moving like a bird’s to carry them wherever the Lord willed them to go. And still more he wished that he could see that wonderful figure which Ezekiel saw by the river Chebar—a living creature with the face of a man, and a calf and a lion and an eagle, all woven in and out with wings and all full of eyes, flashing like lightning, whirling like wheels, and moving wherever the Spirit of God carried the strange living creature. He thrilled whenever he heard the story of Daniel and he wondered whether he himself would have dared to pray to Jehovah and go to the lions for it. He had seen a lion once who was being carried to Ephesus in a cage, to be let out in the amphitheatre. The lion roared and shook his cage and showed his terrible teeth. Then little Saul thought of calm, brave Daniel going down into a den full of beasts like that.

And Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, the three heroes of the burning fiery furnace, were men he loved to hear about. “Be it known unto thee O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” Those words always stirred him like a trumpet. And he waited every time to hear once more about one like unto a son of God walking with these brave Jews in the midst of Nebuchadnezzar’s fire. But best of all he liked the story of the faith of great father Abraham. He could almost see him laying the sticks of wood on the altar and binding his own only boy upon them. He wondered if his father would have done it with him, if he heard the Lord tell him to do it! Then suddenly came the joyous relief: the ram in the thicket, and little Isaac spared, just as the dreadful knife flashed in the air.

These heroes were going in procession through his mind as he gazed at the eastern gate in the mountains through which the road ran that led on toward the one city of all the world. Just then his mother stood by his side and took his hand in hers. She could see that big thoughts were moving in him and she felt a kind of awe as she looked down at the pale earnest face.

“Mother, which is the hardest of all the commandments to keep—I mean, really to keep, and not to break at all?”

In her mind, the fond Jewish mother standing in the dusk by the boy she loved, ran over all the commandments. “Thou shalt not have any other gods but Jehovah.”

“Thou shalt not make any graven image.”

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

“Thou shalt observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”

“Thou shalt honour thy father and mother.”

“Thou shalt do no murder.”

“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

“Thou shalt not steal.”

“Thou shalt not bear false witness.”

“Thou shalt not covet, or desire.” While she was thinking how to answer, little Saul said: “I know which is the easiest.”

“And which is it?” asked his mother.

“Thou shalt honour thy father and mother. It is the easiest thing there is to do. I don’t have to stop to think to do that! It is not so easy, though, to keep the Sabbath day holy. There are so many things to remember. Now that I have let my pet stork go, I do not feel tempted any more to play with him on the Sabbath day. But sometimes I start off for a walk before I think, and I carry things that are too heavy to be lifted on the Sabbath day. I wonder if I shall ever get so righteous, like our great Hebrew saints, that I shall not do anything wrong on the Sabbath day. It is very, very hard to be perfectly good. Do you not think, Mother, that this is the hardest of all the commandments to keep?”

“No, my dear Saul, there is one which you will find much harder to keep. It is the last one in the list: “Thou shalt not want things—thou shalt not desire.” This commandment has to do with what goes on inside. All the others are about things we do in the world outside. This one is in there where you think. It says that you must rule your own spirit and not want or desire what you ought not to have or ought not to do. That my little boy, as he grows larger, will find very hard indeed to keep. Only the great God who guided Abraham our father all the way from Ur of the Chaldees to the dear land of Canaan can help my boy to keep that commandment.”

“Anyway I shall try, mother. It isn’t any harder is it than going into a den of lions or into Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace?”

“Ah, but my Saul will never have any such dreadful things to do, for he is born a Roman citizen and he can always appeal to CÆsar. Now it is time little boys were in bed.”