The Ark was not there, but Jehovah was--in the faith of every child of Israel he was there a personal Presence.
As a temple, as a monument, there was nowhere anything of man's building to approach that superlative apparition.

Now, not a stone of it remains above another.

Who shall rebuild that building?
When shall the rebuilding be begun?
So asks every pilgrim who has stood where Ben-Hur was--he asks, knowing the answer is in the bosom of God, whose secrets are not least marvellous in their well-keeping.
And then the third question, What of him who foretold the ruin which has so certainly befallen?
God?
Or man of God?
Or--enough that the question is for us to answer.
And still Ben-Hur's eyes climbed on and up--up over the roof of the Temple, to the hill Zion, consecrated to sacred memories, inseparable from the anointed kings.

He knew the Cheesemonger's Valley dipped deep down between Moriah and Zion; that it was spanned by the Xystus; that there were gardens and palaces in its depths; but over them all his thoughts soared with his vision to the great grouping on the royal hill--the house of Caiaphas, the Central Synagogue, the Roman Praetorium, Hippicus the eternal, and the sad but mighty cenotaphs Phasaelus and Mariamne--all relieved against Gareb, purpling in the distance.

And when midst them he singled out the palace of Herod, what could he but think of the King Who Was Coming, to whom he was himself devoted, whose path he had undertaken to smooth, whose empty hands he dreamed of filling?
And forward ran his fancy to the day the new King should come to claim his own and take possession of it--of Moriah and its Temple; of Zion and its towers and palaces; of Antonia, frowning darkly there just to the right of the Temple; of the new unwalled city of Bezetha; of the millions of Israel to assemble with palm-branches and banners, to sing rejoicing because the Lord had conquered and given them the world.
Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep.
They should know better.