moved from the Tiber, of beasts that had come from the seaport, Ostia, thither out of savage portions of the earth-unto the center of this whole world's civilization.

"Cæsar, thou hast a glorious world! It is thine."

The feeling of a stranger in a strange land came over Simon of Cyrene. Yet no whit stranger was he here in Rome, thought he, than he had felt himself to be, long, long before, in the fields of Bethlehem and Migdal Eder. How then was that? Had he, Simon, never had a home? God's priest-no home! What a world for priest of God! Christ also, he had not

"It is thy world, O Cæsar! It is not thy world, O priest of God." He gained the mouth of a street between long, low houses which crowded round about the river front. And he went up upon the bank of the Tiber.

Thence he gazed down at the dun-colored stream. Sombre and silent the river moved on, in its ordained way to the mighty ocean. "It is thy world, O Cæsar."

The noise of the howling beasts had become a distant roar, like that of a wind which is gone but still groaneth.

"It is thy world, O Cæsar." The river looked cool and inviting, filled with deep forgetfulness of the fever which men call life. A single plunge "Thy world!" He laughed to think how his own mere, insignificant will could defeat the will of Jehovah, could, at the same very stroke, drown that insignificant, yet all-defeating, will. Aloud cried he, "I will do it. I will defeat the very God of all this universe."

"But not of us," cried voices.

And he turned, and beheld approaching even the forms of Nummus and Praesens Pecunia.

"Foolish fellow!" cried they, "when we have so much of pleasure for thee yet. Nay, speak not. We have heard, heard all-both as concerning thee and thy Jehovah and also as concerning Cæsar and thee. But that was a splendid scheme of thine, and not the product of any foolish head. Not thou, but Cæsar-Cæsar was the foolish

man.

"Come, we will help thee. Thou art of our kind. A bag across the shoulder-out among the peasants of the Campagna. They need many things. They will make thee prosperous. Come. They know not how to buy. Come. Thou canst learn the way of trading. Come. Away! Come. A bag! Come. Prosperity! Come."

Therefore, see, upon a day, Simon of Cyrene, priest to the Lord

of all This Universe, doing His will amid the peasants of the Campagna, with a bag across the shoulders, flitting here, flitting there.

And his steps were not confined to the near and soft Champaigns of Greatest Ease. He set a stout heart to the rugged path over the distant Hills of Difficulty, and on across the volcanic seas of Sheer Exhaustion, went down into the Valley of Despair and drank of its bitter waters, and on and on, until he had passed over the ridge, incredibly remote, which divides Failure from Success.

But ever with varying fortunes he plodded.

And he failed again.

And then he gathered dust, and cast it on his head, and cursed the day on which he was born, and lay down and grovelled, and arose and went again on his conquering way.

Many a passerby believed that the man was poor in spirit. But lo, his heart was as an all-consuming flame.

Way for God's priest!

He learned to read the masks and minds of men. The comic mask, the tragic mask, the mask of infidelity, of treason, of pity, of friendship, lechery, scholarship, high thought, and pure trust-he learned to read, to know them all. The souls of men stood forth naked and alone in the presence of him, Simon of Cyrene.

A simple bagman, selling combs and gewgaws!

He dreamed at night (not only in the day) of scales and bales, the loading and discharging of unimagined quantities of goods: grain and wine, ivory and frankincense, weapons and horses, furs and fabrics. He had fleets of many-oared ships, caravans of Bactrian camels and dromedaries of Anatolia. He almost wore his fingers out, even in his sleep, counting profits.

Then, awaking, he would swallow a crust of bread, shoulder his pedlar's bag, and be off to far-away spots.

At length, for fear of arousing people's suspicions, he entered no farther than their doors, unless specially invited so to do. He had had experiences.

"Combs and dolls! Trinkets and gewgaws! Combs and dolls! Trinkets and gewgaws!"

Gay and light must the wares have seemed to Simon's purchasers, but heavy and black unto the Jew, heavy and black on endless, footsore, dusty days. Yet ever and again he beheld with a vivid and too sharp inner eye, the Mines, the lions, the endless files of crosses, and kept steadily on. Night after night he plodded, under the prophetic constellations, day after day sought market for his simple wares. A rough enough life he led, too, knocking about the country at all sea

sons, at midnight and at sunrise, in torturing heat or spiteful hail, or intolerant blast that blew his boxes all about the road: sleeping sometimes in thief-infested inns, holding the door against robbers, sharing at times the bed of a slave, or, somewhat better, the fold of a sheep, or, somewhat worse, the stalls of cattle and the styes of hogs-this Simon of Cyrene and of Calvary, the cross-bearer of Christ. He was doing well if he got back into Rome for the Sabbath. Sometimes he was doing remarkably well to get back home at all. The world was against him on the right hand and on the left. The only persons that ever would walk beside him were Labor, Sorrow and Care. Oh yes! Nummus and Praesens Pecunia were always glad to see him back in Rome. Now and then they had embraces for him.

There began, about this time, a strange dissension in Simon's emotional make-up. His old outspoken and strongly aggressive nature was continually quarreling with his second nature, that of shrewdness and sly caution. He was one moment frankly denunciatory and, the next, subtly apologetic. There came, at length, to be two kinds of writhing demons of emotion within him-the conciliatory and the pugnacious.

Sometimes, when he was alone, these devils of contrary disposition struggled with each other during long hours for the mastery over him. Anon the one, anon the other, prevailed. And again, they would struggle, both of them, in vain; for, at the close of the fight, he would (as if moved by an inexplicable power which came upon him from without) perform the bidding of neither of these twain portions of his soul, but carry out some plan of which, thitherto, he had been hardly conscious at all. Or, the outward power would join itself to one or the other of the inward two, and behold-an incontestable (but not enduring) victory!

He was a great reasoner in his way, about this time of his life, but sometimes he had no head at all for argument, only a blunt sense, an erratic impulse, a blundering sort of instinct, which, ofttimes, led him, or drew him, or incontinently and most imperiously dragged him, spite of himself, to speak concerning matters which he had rather have kept concealed, caused him to give some deep offense where he had rather by far have practiced supplication only-thus forever keeping him a man apart, howsoever much he might desire and strive to be lost in the general multitude, to commingle with and become a homogeneous and indistinguishable portion of it. It is a terrible thing for any man to be taught the absolute truth about himself, to be shown what he really is, and many a personage in Italy was shown by Simon of Cyrene, in those untutored outbursts, the deeps of his

own bad heart, as a shimmering wave of heat lightning in the night reveals with startling distinctness thitherto unsuspected gulfs within the far deeps of a distant cloud. Ah, Simon of Cyrene, whether thou Ha didst endeavor to reason, or whether, before thou spakest, thou hadst da emotional turmoils deep within thee, in either of these cases, thou wouldst sometimes speak-the truth. Even as the prophets of old, so spakest thou, and, like them, thou sufferedst in consequence of the speaking.

Spite of his blundering and forthright blurting out, there came to Simon, ofttimes, as we have said before, floods of prosperity, when it seemed that now at last his worldly welfare was adequately, securely, and perpetually confirmed. Yet, ever, at the very crest, appeared some kind of crisis, or turn, a great reversal, a suction, an undertow, an exceedingly subtle, but apparently foreordained and wholly irresistible ebbing—and alas then for God's priest. Ophidion, as Simon knew, was often responsible for these changes. Ophidion, the friend of the Emperor. Yet, in his heart, Cæsar had also a place for the Simon knew that. He counted on it. There would come a

Jew. day

Then again he sometimes thought that, in a spot off and away in infinite space, there must be some great, unpitying power, an omnipotent and evil intelligence, laughing heedlessly at all things Simonian, all things Jewish, all things human, or mundane, or even anywhere at all existent.

Yet ever he kept at work; hard at work, hard at work. Dreams set off a little to one side again! Money to be made once more. Money, money, money. Money everywhere! He saw money on each bush and bramble, in the trees, in the rocks of the hills and the leaves of the forest, on the sheeps' backs, all over the Campagna, down in the subpelagian deeps of the city, then out over Italy again, and all the waiting world!

Often when nearly a risen man once more, some enemy of his from Spain or Gaul, or Germany, or far Cyrenaica, or Egypt, would hinder his plans, or totally block them. And all that was in his heart at times like these, may no other man know.

This much, however, we may take as settled for certain: Simon of Cyrene (even more than when he was in the Mines) became almost a maniac for everything that dazzles, or blazes, or glitters, or glares, or shines, or sparkles, or twinkles. And he lusted for the touch of silken garments, the feel of polished gems, the odors of lily or rose, of frankincense, nard, musk. The music of lutes and flutes he longed for, panting; and joyous, triumphant song. He was well-nigh crazed

for high magnificence, irresistible power. Ah Cæsar, have a care! There is out in the Campagna a beggar (or, much the same, a bag. man) who will not always carry boxes in a bag.

Now the pedlar-king, whenever he found it possible, made back into the city on every Sabbath eve, the lonesome city, which drew him more and more with a terrible fascination, not merely as a place to hail from, but as a nest, a solemn and steady abiding place, a home, a place where unlimited money was, also. If only a strong man could get strong hands upon that money, hands of righteousness of course!

By little and little, his trade was more and more within the city. In the change he was greatly aided by laws enacted at the cruel suggestion of Ophidion. It pleased God to afflict His servant in this way and so to drive him into Rome, to make him there a fixture and a stone of knowing. Might any one (at length) imagine that, in Rome, there could be no Simon of Cyrene?

He plied in the streets as porter, but it suited him not. And yet he must live by some disgraceful occupation, for ever the hand of Ophidion went forth to afflict him. Peddling, garbage-picking, shopkeeping in the Trans-Tiber, or else in the borders of the dark Subura, money-lending-oh, very well! He opened a tiny shop in a place where many people came and went. He rose again. He got him a bigger shop. He lent much moneys even on the Roman Forum. From many an old dust-heap he gathered gold unstintedly, and out of cold ashes he made hot fires.

He had now his own bankers, at home and abroad, his own shippers, ship-captains, money-changers, commissioners, tasters, contractors, buyers, builders, warehouse managers and inspectors, caravanleaders, camel breeders, dock-masters, granary superintendents, and quarry- and mine-masters. In addition he indirectly set to useful employment many multitudes of lesser men. His caravans wound from Egypt to the Valley of the Euphrates, and on to the Walls of China and the Infinite Ocean. And there came to Rome continually abundant treasures which were his: tin from Cornwall, amber out of Saxony, the linen and the wool of Phoenicia and the purple apparel of Sidon, yea and silver bars out of Gades and gold from the Mines of the Wretched, which are in unforgotten Spain.

Some cursed him privily, others reviled him openly. He was feared by all but one or two-among the exceptions, Seneca.

He became so important at length that the drawers of graffiti (those cruel caricatures upon the many house- and garden-walls of Rome) began to show him up (with his name attached) in the center