OCR Text |
Show H THE THKHK WISE MEN I B af"'''' ChristniM mystery remains unsolved. B Who were the wise men of the east the! H magi who followed the star of Bethlehem from ! afar to do homage to the newborn Savior? B It is fair to assume from the fact that the vis- H (ton were received at court by King Herod and B that they carried gifts of value that they wcrej H in their own country men of royalty or close to it. B Herod evidently deemed it well to treat them with H deference, for disquieted though he was by their B news of the comet that was to lead them to the B birthplace of the Redeemer he dissembled and told B them that when they had found the newborn he H would return to worship with them. B Much of our information about the early days H of the Christian era comes from the monks of the B fourteenth century, who delved deeply into his- H torical sources since lost to the world. Their story I of the three wise men has received wide credence. B 'According to these monks, the wise men were B three great kings called Caspar, Melchior and Ral- B thnsar. Caspar was the oldest and from the north. B At tnp t'me (,f tne oirtn of Christ he was sixty Lsl vears old. and for more than two-thirds of that fl time he had ruled in Arabia. Ralthasar was black, B a native of Saba, from the east, and forty years B old. The youngest was Melchior, from the south, B whose country was Tarshish. He was twenty B years B Impelled by some mysterious power, they all H dropped the cares of state and followed a single B star thirteen days and nights, without eating or H sleeping', till it led them to Jerusalem. B Then the story follows that of the Bible until H they returned to their own countries. B The story does not stop here. It. tells circum- B stantially the alter life of the three wise men. H The good Apostle St. Thomas journeyed to their H country and baptised them, and all three went out H to preach the doctrine of the Christ. H They were slain by barbarous gentiles, and H later the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, H recovered their sacred bones and took them to H Constantinople, Thence they were carried to Mi- jH Ian and dually found an ultimate resting place in H Cologne, where tiny now are. New York Post. |