Unto the Least of These...

Nephi, Writing of the Words of Lehi, Which He Gave to His Family While Traveling in the Wilderness:

“Yea, even six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem, a prophet would the

Lord God raise up among the Jews—even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the

world. And he also spake concerning the prophets, how great a number had testified of these

things, concerning this Messiah, of whom he had spoken, or this Redeemer of the world.” (1

Nephi 10:4–5)

Carol: “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”

God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,

Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day;

To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy;

O tidings of comfort and joy.

In Bethlehem, in Israel, this blessèd Babe was born,

And laid within a manger upon this blessèd morn;

The which His mother Mary did nothing take in scorn.

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy;

O tidings of comfort and joy.

From God our heavenly Father a blessèd angel came;

And unto certain shepherds brought tidings of the same;

How that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name.

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy;

O tidings of comfort and joy.

The Other Wise Man

by Henry Van Dyke

You know the story of the Three Wise Men of the East, and how they travelled from far away to offer their gifts at the manger-cradle in Bethlehem. But have you ever heard the story of the Other Wise Man, who also saw the star in its rising, and set out to follow it, yet did not arrive with his brethren in the presence of the young child Jesus? Of the great desire of this fourth pilgrim, and how it was denied, yet accomplished in the denial; of his many wanderings and the probations of his soul; of the long way of his seeking and the strange way of his finding the One whom he sought—I would tell the tale as I have heard fragments of it in the Hall of Dreams, in the palace of the Heart of Man.

In the days when Augustus Caesar was master of many kings and Herod reigned in Jerusalem, there lived in the city of Ecbatana, among the mountains of Persia, a certain man named Artaban. He, together with three companions among the wise men of Persia, had long awaited a new star that would appear when the Savior would be born. He watched at home in Persia, while his three friends observed the sky from Babylon.

One night the long-awaited star appeared, Artaban bowed his head. He covered his brow with his hands. “It is the sign,” he said. “The King is coming, and I will go to meet him.” While he was speaking he thrust his hand into the inmost fold of his girdle and drew out three great gems—one blue as a fragment of the night sky, one redder than a ray of sunrise, and one as pure as the peak of a snow-mountain at twilight—his gifts for the King.

Artaban rode his horse until he arrived, at nightfall on the tenth day, beneath the walls of populous Babylon. Artaban would gladly have turned into the city to find rest and refreshment for himself, but he knew that it was three hours’ journey yet to the place he must reach by midnight if he would find his comrades waiting. So he did not halt but rode steadily across the fields.

Then the dim starlight revealed the form of a man lying across the road. His humble dress and the outline of his haggard face showed that he a Hebrew. The chill of death was in his lean hand as Artaban as he took it in his own. Artaban’s heart leaped with resentment at the delay. How could he stay here in the darkness to minister to a dying stranger? If he lingered but for an hour, he could hardly reach his companions at the appointed time. They would think he had given up the journey and would go without him. He would lose his quest.

But if he went on now, the man would surely die. If Artaban stayed, life might be restored. Should he risk the great reward of his faith for the sake of a single deed of charity? Should he turn aside, if only for a moment, from the following of the star, to give a cup of cold water to a poor, perishing Hebrew?

“God of truth and purity,” he prayed, “direct me in the holy path, the way of wisdom which Thou only knowest.” Then he turned back to the sick man and carried him to a little mound at the foot of the palm-tree. He brought water from one of the small canals near by, and moistened the sufferer’s brow and mouth. Hour after hour he laboured as only a skillful healer of disease can do. At last the man’s strength returned; he sat up and looked about him. Slowly the Jew raised his trembling hand solemnly to heaven.

“Now may the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob bless and prosper the journey of the merciful, and bring him in peace to his desired haven. Stay! I have nothing to give thee in return—only this: that I can tell thee where the Messiah must be sought. For our prophets have said that he should be born not in Jerusalem, but in Bethlehem of Judah. May the Lord bring thee in safety to that place, because thou hast had pity upon the sick.”

When he had tended further to the sick man, Artaban hurried to the appointed place. There he found a piece of parchment on which was written, “We have waited past the midnight and can delay no longer. We go to find the King. Follow us across the desert.”

Artaban sat down upon the ground and covered his head in despair.

“How can I cross the desert,” said he, “with no food and with a spent horse? I must return to Babylon, sell my sapphire, and buy a train of camels, and provision for the journey. I may never overtake my friends. Only God the merciful knows whether I shall not lose the sight of the King because I tarried to show mercy.”

Many days later he arrived at Bethlehem. And it was the third day after the three Wise Men had come to that place and had found Mary and Joseph, with the young child, Jesus, and had laid their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh at his feet. Then the Other Wise Man drew near, weary, but full of hope, bearing his ruby and his pearl to offer to the King.

The streets of the village seemed to be deserted, and Artaban wondered whether the men had all gone up to the hill-pastures to bring down their sheep. From the open door of a cottage he heard the sound of a woman’s voice singing softly. He entered and found a young mother hushing her baby to rest. She told him of the strangers from the far East who had appeared in the village three days ago, and how they said that a star had guided them to the place where Joseph of Nazareth was lodging with his wife and her new-born child,  and how they had paid reverence to the child and given him many rich gifts.

“But the travellers disappeared again,” she continued, “The man of Nazareth took the child and his mother, and fled away that same night secretly, and it was whispered that they were going to Egypt.”

Artaban listened to her gentle, timid speech, and the child in her arms looked up in his face and smiled, stretching out its rosy hands. “Why might not this child have been the promised Prince?” he asked within himself, as he touched its soft cheek. “Kings have been born ere now in lowlier houses than this, and the favourite of the stars may rise even from a cottage. But it has not seemed good to the God of wisdom to reward my search so soon and so easily. The one whom I seek has gone before me; and now I must follow the King to Egypt.”

But suddenly there came the noise of a wild confusion in the streets of the village, a shrieking and wailing of women’s voices, a clangour of brazen trumpets and a clashing of swords, and a desperate cry: “The soldiers! the soldiers of Herod! They are killing our children.” The young mother’s face grew white with terror.  The soldiers came hurrying down the street with bloody hands and dripping swords. But Artaban, standing in the doorway said, “I am all alone in this place, and I am waiting to give this jewel to the prudent captain who will leave me in peace.”

He showed the ruby, glistening in the hollow of his hand like a great drop of blood. The captain was amazed at the splendour of the gem. He stretched out his hand and took the ruby. “March on!” he cried to his men,  there is no child here. The house is empty.”

Artaban re-entered the cottage and turned his face to the east and prayed: “God of truth, forgive my sin! I have said the thing that is not, to save the life of a child. And two of my gifts are gone. I have spent for man that which was meant for God. Shall I ever be worthy to see the face of the King?”

But the voice of the woman, weeping for joy in the shadow behind him, said very gently: “Because thou hast saved the life of my little one, may the Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace.”

Artaban, still following the King went on into Egypt seeking everywhere for traces of the little family that had fled there before him. For many years Artaban searched among the pyramids, among the villages and towns of Egypt, and in the great city of Alexandria.

There he took counsel with a Hebrew rabbi who told him to seek the King not among the rich but among the poor. The venerable man, bending over the rolls of parchment on which the prophecies of Israel were written, read aloud the pathetic words which foretold the sufferings of the promised Messiah—the despised and rejected of men, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Artaban passed through countries where famine lay heavy upon the land, and the poor were crying for bread. He made his dwelling in plague-stricken cities where the sick were languishing in the bitter companionship of helpless misery. He visited the oppressed and the afflicted in the gloom of subterranean prisons, and the crowded wretchedness of slave-markets, and the weary toil of galley-ships.

In all this populous and intricate world of anguish, though he found none to worship, he found many to help. He fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and healed the sick, and comforted the captive; and his years passed more swiftly than the weaver’s shuttle that flashes back and forth through the loom. 

Three-and-thirty years of the life of Artaban had passed away, and he was still a pilgrim and a seeker after

light. His hair, once dark was now white. His eyes, that once flashed like flames of fire, were dull. Worn and weary and ready to die, but still looking for the King, he had come for the last time to Jerusalem.

It was the season of the Passover. The city was thronged with strangers. The children of Israel, scattered in far lands, had returned to the Temple for the great feast, but on this day a singular agitation was visible as the multitude rushed from the city. Artaban asked where they were going.

“We are going,” they answered, “to the place called Golgotha, outside the city walls, where there is to be an execution. Have you not heard what has happened? Two famous robbers are to be crucified, and with them another, called Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has done many wonderful works among the people, so that they love him greatly. But the priests and elders have said that he must die, because he gave himself out to be the Son of God. And Pilate has sent him to the cross because he said that he was the `King of the Jews.’

The King had arisen, but he had been denied and cast out. He was about to perish. Perhaps he was already dying. Could it be the same who had been born in Bethlehem thirty-three years ago, at whose birth the star had appeared in heaven, and of whose coming the prophets had spoken?

But Artaban said within himself: “The ways of God are stranger than the thoughts of men, and it may be that I shall find the King, at last, in the hands of his enemies, and shall come in time to offer my pearl for his ransom  before he dies.”

As Artaban started towards Calvary a troop of soldiers came down the street, dragging a young girl with torn dress and disheveled hair. As Artaban paused to look at her with compassion, she broke suddenly from the hands of her tormentors, and threw herself at his feet, clasping him around the knees. She had seen his  white cap and the winged circle on his breast.

“Have pity on me,” she cried, “and save me! My father was a merchant of Parthia, but he is dead, and I am seized for his debts to be sold as a slave. Save me from worse than death!”

Artaban trembled as he felt the old conflict in his soul—the conflict between the expectation of faith and the impulse of love. Twice the gift which he had consecrated to the worship of religion had been drawn to the service of humanity. This was the third trial. One thing only was sure to his divided heart—to rescue this helpless girl would be a true deed of love.

He took the pearl from his bosom. Never had it seemed so luminous, so radiant, so full of tender, living lustre. He laid it in the hand of the slave. “This is thy ransom, daughter! It is the last of my treasures which I kept for the King.”

While he spoke, the darkness of the sky deepened, and shuddering tremors ran through the earth heaving convulsively like the breast of one who struggles with mighty grief.

The walls of the houses rocked to and fro as an earthquake shook the ground below him. The soldiers fled, but what did Artaban have to fear? What had he to hope? He had given away the last remnant of his tribute for the King. He had parted with the last hope of finding him. The quest was over, and it had failed. But, even in that thought, accepted and embraced, there was peace.

One more lingering pulsation of the earthquake quivered through the ground. A heavy tile, shaken from the roof, fell and struck the old man on the temple. He lay breathless and pale. Then there came a voice through the twilight, very small and still, like music sounding from a distance. The rescued girl leaned over him and heard him say, “Not so, my Lord! For when saw I thee an hungered and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw I thee a stranger, and took thee in? Or naked, and clothed thee? When saw I thee sick or in prison, and came unto thee? Thirty-three years have I looked for thee; but I have never seen thy face, nor ministered to thee, my King.”

He ceased, and the sweet voice came again, “Verily I say unto thee, Inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one

of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me.”

A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the pale face of Artaban like the first ray of dawn, on a snowy mountain-peak. A long breath of relief exhaled gently from his lips. His journey was ended. His treasures were accepted. The Other Wise Man had found the King.