At the conclusion he raised his suffused eyes in thanksgiving and prayer.

He asked no questions, yet had no doubts.
"Thou hast been very good to me, O God," he said.

"Give me, I pray thee, to see the Saviour again, and worship him, and thy servant will be ready to go in peace." The words, the manner, the singular personality of the simple prayer, touched Ben-Hur with a sensation new and abiding.

God never seemed so actual and so near by; it was as if he were there bending over them or sitting at their side--a Friend whose favors were to be had by the most unceremonious asking--a Father to whom all his children were alike in love--Father, not more of the Jew than of the Gentile--the Universal Father, who needed no intermediates, no rabbis, no priests, no teachers.

The idea that such a God might send mankind a Saviour instead of a king appeared to Ben-Hur in a light not merely new, but so plain that he could almost discern both the greater want of such a gift and its greater consistency with the nature of such a Deity.