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 went by more
swiftly than the weaver's shuttle that flashes back and forth through
the loom while the web grows and the invisible pattern is completed.
It seemed almost as if he had forgotten his quest. But once I saw him
for a moment as he stood alone at sunrise, waiting at the gate of a
Roman prison. He had taken from a secret resting-place in his bosom the
pearl, the last of his jewels. As he looked at it, a mellower lustre, a
soft and iridescent light, full of shifting gleams of azure and rose,
trembled upon its surface. It seemed to have absorbed some reflection
of the colors of the lost sapphire and ruby. So the profound, secret
purpose of a noble life draws into itself the memories of past joy and
past sorrow. All that has helped it, all that has hindered it, is
transfused by a subtle magic into its very essence. It becomes more
luminous and precious the longer it is carried close to the warmth of
the beating heart.
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