Reckoning from the first submission of king Joakim, in the third year of his reign, to Nabuchodonosor, then heir-apparent to the kingdom of Babylon (606 B.C.), when Daniel and his companions and a number of the people were carried to Babylon, the seventy years foretold by Jeremias were now passed, and the captives in Jerusalem were expecting their liberation. Isaias had foretold that Cyrus should be their deliverer: 'Thus saith the Lord to My anointed Cyrus, "For the sake of My servant Jacob, and Israel My elect, I have even called thee by thy name, though thou hast not known Me" (Isaias xlv. 1). The decree of Cyrus (B.c. 536) for their liberation ran as follows:

Thus saith Cyrus, king of the Persians, The Lord, the God of heaven, hath given to me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He hath charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judea.

and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel; He is the God that is in Jerusalem.

And let all the rest in all places wheresoever they dwell help him every man from his place, with silver and gold, and goods and cattle, besides that which they offer freely to the Temple of God, which is in Jerusalem.

Who is there among you of all His people? His God be with him. Let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judea, Zorobabel, called by his Babylonian name Sassabassar, was appointed head of those who returned; but, according as the prophets had predicted, 'that a remnant only should return and again take root,' the majority of the people had come to possess houses and land in Babylon; and thus it turned out that those who were zealous for their God and the honour of Jerusalem were the smaller number, compared with those who preferred the ease and prosperity of a life in Babylon. The joy, however, of those who assembled to return with Zorobabel knew no limits; and it became the subject of a psalm, in the same manner as the sorrows of their captivity :

THE RETURN FROM BABYLON TO SION (Psalm cxxv.). When the Lord brought back the captivity of Sion, we became like men that are comforted.

Then was our mouth filled with gladness, and our tongue with joy. Then shall they say among the Gentiles, The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us; we are become joyful.

Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as a stream in the south.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

They went forth on their way and wept, scattering their seed.

But returning, they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves with them.

On the first building of the Temple, Solomon had received letters of congratulation and goodwill from all the neighbouring princes and kingdoms; and on the setting up of the altar and the dedication of the house of the Lord, the whole kingdom rang with shouts of joy, and all the neighbouring people rejoiced with Israel. But when the remnant of the children of the captivity came back, few in number and broken in spirit, to rebuild a second temple out of the ruins, which the sins of their nation and its rulers had brought upon the holy place, they soon found that though the first building of the Temple had been a work of joy and peace,

the work of undoing sin and wickedness, and of building it again out of ruins, would be one of strife and danger.

Aggeus and Zacharias, who were prophets at this time in Jerusalem, rebuked the people for being afraid of the difficulties that rose up in their way. The former exclaimed, 'Is this a time for you to dwell in ceiled houses, and this house to lie waste?' Zorobabel therefore took courage and commenced the works anew; upon which, the opposition of the Samaritans was immediately renewed, and the matter was brought before king Darius, who was now on the throne, Smerdis the usurper having been defeated. Darius soon ended the dispute by confirming the decree of his grandfather Cyrus, and by ordering that if any man offered any more opposition, a beam of wood should be taken out of his house, and he should be hanged upon it. Armed with this decree, Zorobabel pushed forward the works of the Temple; and at length they were completed in the month Adar, of the sixth year of king Darius (Hystaspes). The feast of unleavened bread was kept by all the people with the greatest joy, on the occasion of the solemn dedication of the second Temple. In the beginning of the restoration however, and at the time when nothing but the foundations had been marked out, and when the altar alone had been dedicated for the sacrifice, tears and lamentations from the aged men who had seen the glory of the first Temple mingled with the joy of the younger, so that when the sacrifice was first offered after many years' interruption, the voice of the shout of joy could not be distinguished from the noise of the weeping of the people.' Nevertheless, the prophet Aggeus restored their courage by prophesying to them, that 'great shall be the glory of this house, more than of the first, saith the Lord of Hosts; in this place I will give peace; the desired of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts.' Thus the work prospered, and was happily completed under Zorobabel; and at length the joy and solemnity of its final dedication consoled the people for their struggles in the work of rebuilding.

The first and second Temples convey a very Christian lesson. As long as the first temple of baptismal innocence is preserved from sin, all is joy and happiness; but if it comes to be profaned and ruined, it can indeed be rebuilt by the mercy of God, but only with sorrow and penance.

§ 78. Esdras, the second Moses, is sent to restore the law of Moses in Jerusalem (458 B.C.). Nehemias follows Esdras.

The following monarchs succeeded Cyrus on the throne of Persia: Cambyses, Smerdis the Magian, Darius Hystaspes, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, surnamed Longimanus, in whose reign Esdras, the ready scribe in the law of Moses,' received the royal commission to go up to Jerusalem, with power from the king to set all that appertained to the rites of the God of heaven in order, lest His wrath should be enkindled against the realm of the king and of his sons; also to appoint judges in the land, for those who knew the law, and freely to teach the ignorant.' So ran the decree.

Thus empowered, Esdras set out at the head of another company of Jews, who volunteered to go back with him. At the river Ahava, as Esdras himself relates, I proclaimed a fast, that we might ask of the Lord our God a prosperous journey; for I was ashamed to ask the king for aid, and for horsemen to defend us from the enemy in the way, because we had said to the king, "The hand of our God is upon all them that seek Him in goodness, and His power, strength, and wrath upon all them that forsake Him." Esdras and his company arrived safe, and were received with open arms by the Jews that were already there.

Esdras soon found that, though the Temple had been built, a serious work of reform still had to be accomplished, in order to restore the observance of the law. Of those who had returned under Zorobabel, great numbers had made unlawful mixed marriages with the people of the land; even priests had done this. When he was fully acquainted with the fact, he went up to the house of God, and fell down before the altar, and sat down mourning until the time of the evening sacrifice; then he rent his mantle, and fell on his knees, and said:

PRAYER AND CONFESSION OF ESDRAS IN THE TEMPLE.

My God, I am confounded and ashamed to lift up my face to Thee; for our iniquities are multiplied over our heads, and our sins are grown up even unto heaven.

And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? for we have forsaken Thy commandments,

Which Thou hast commanded by the hand of Thy servants, the prophets, saying, The land which you go to possess is an unclean land.

Now, therefore, give not your daughters to their sons, and take not their daughters for your sons, and seek not their peace nor their prosperity for ever; that you may be strengthened and may eat the good things of the land, and

may have your children your heirs for

ever.

And after all that is come upon us for our most wicked deeds, and our great sin, seeing that Thou our God hast saved us from our iniquity, and hast given us a deliverance as at this day,

That we should not turn away, nor break Thy commandments, nor join in marriage with the people of these abominations. Art Thou angry with us unto utter destruction, not to leave us a remnant to be saved?

O Lord God of Israel, Thou art just; for we remain yet to be saved as at this day. Behold, we are before Thee in our sin; for there can be no standing before Thee in this matter.

The prayer of Esdras prevailed over the wickedness of the people; and judges were appointed to carry the separation from these unlawful marriages into effect. While Esdras was engaged in this and many other civil and religious reforms connected with his mission, it pleased God. to show mercy to the people, by sending them another friend in Nehemias. Nehemias was cup-bearer in the court of Artaxerxes (the Assuerus of the Book of Esther); and it was probably through the influence of Mardochai and queen Esther that he obtained the grant of the special powers which he had asked from the king, to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall round the city.

'When I had been three days in Jerusalem,' thus he tells the story in his own words, 'I arose in the night, I and some few men with me;

and I told not any man what God had put in my heart to do in Jerusalem; and there was no beast with me but the beast that I rode upon. And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, and before the dragon fountain; and I viewed the wall of Jerusalem which was broken down, and the gates thereof which were consumed by fire. And I passed to the gate of the fountain, and to the king's aqueduct ; and there was no place for the beast on which I rode to pass. And I went up in the night by the torrent, and viewed the wall; and going back, I came to the gate of the valley, and returned.'

The result of this survey of the ruins was, that he called the children of the captivity together, and showing them the letters granted to him by the king, he said, 'Let us rise up and build.' The people upon this all took courage. But when Sanaballat the Horonite, with Tobias the Ammonite and Gossem the Arabian, who were great enemies of the Jews, heard of the decision that had been come to to rebuild the wall, they were very angry, and Sanaballat said before a meeting of the Samaritans, What are the silly Jews doing? Will the Gentiles let them alone?' Tobias, who stood by, said, 'Let them build; if a fox go up, he will leap over their stone wall.' The Jews, however, were now in earnest. Nehemias divided the entire work of the wall between different companies of the people; and Sanaballat and his friends soon perceived that if they meant to stop them from building, something more than scoffing words would be required. They therefore laid their plans together to attack the building parties at their work. Nehemias, hearing of their design, prepared for them by planting armed companies behind the walls when an attack was expected, and placed trumpeters at certain distances from each other to give the signal, that those who were near might come to help their brethren, saying to them, 'Be not afraid of them; remember the Lord, who is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses.' The enemies of the work were not, however, confined to opponents without. Those of the Jews themselves who had money began to profit by the scarcity of provisions, and they lent their money to the people engaged on the work to buy corn, on the bond of their sons and daughters and on the mortgage of their lands and vineyards. Nehemias, hearing of this, called an assembly of the people, and spoke with the most vehement indignation against this conduct, saying to them, 'We, as you know, have redeemed our brethren the Jews that were sold to the Gentiles, according to our ability; and will you then sell your brethren for us to redeem from you? Those who were guilty held down their heads, while Nehemias continued, "The thing you do is not good. Why walk you not in the fear of our God, that we be not exposed to the reproaches of the Gentiles our enemies? I and my brethren and my servants have lent money and corn to many; let us all agree not to call for it again; us forgive the debt that is owing to us.' Nehemias prevailed, and bound the priests by an oath to do as they had promised. Seeing that Nehemias

let

continued to prosper, Sanaballat and Tobias tried to draw Nehemias outside Jerusalem, under pretext of coming to an agreement, intending to seize him. But this plan failed; for Nehemias was not to be taken in so easily, and refused to go. They then tried to frighten him; for which purpose they hired Semeia and Noadias, prophets, to reveal to him a pretended conspiracy. But the wisdom of God was in Nehemias, and he saw through their plot; and thus, in the words of St. Paul, through fears within and fighting without,' in the space of fifty-two days he completed the wall. And fear fell upon the people round about, for they perceived that it was the work of God. God having thus shown mercy to the children of the captivity, Esdras thought that the time was come for a solemn thanksgiving to God for their restoration. A general assembly of all Israel was proclaimed, to be held in Jerusalem, at which Esdras stood upon a pulpit of wood, and read the law to the people. After the reading of the law, when the people wept at the memory of their sins, which the words of the law called to their minds, Esdras comforted them, and said, 'Go and eat fat meat and drink sweet wine, and send portions to those that have not prepared themselves, because it is the holy day of the Lord. Be not sad; for the joy of the Lord is our strength.' In the same month the feast of tabernacles was kept by the children of Israel, which had not been done since the days of Josue; and at the end of the feast, on the four-and-twentieth day of the month, a day of fasting and atonement was observed, when in the most solemn manner the covenant with the Lord God of Israel was renewed.

§ 79. The history of Queen Esther.

Artaxerxes Longimanus (Assuerus), the friend of the Jews, who had sent Esdras with the royal commission to Jerusalem, made a great entertainment to all his nobles and princes among the Medes and Persians, in the city of Susa. On the seventh day of the feast, he took a fancy to send for his queen Vashti, with the royal crown set upon her head, that he might exhibit her beauty to all the people. Vashti resented the indignity of being thus made into a public exhibition, and sent the messenger back, saying, 'that she did not mean to come.' The king, in high fury, consulted his wise men what sentence ought to be passed upon Vashti. They all agreed to advise that she ought to be deposed, saying, 'This deed of the queen will go abroad to all women, so that they will despise their husbands.'

Queen Vashti was accordingly deposed, and a number of the most beautiful young maidens were brought together from various parts of the empire, that from them the king might select his queen to take the place of Vashti. Among these maidens was Esther, the niece of Mardochai, a Jewess of the captivity of Nabuchodonosor, who soon became so much beloved by the king, that he placed the royal crown on her head in the room of Vashti. Esther, however, had said nothing about her being a Jewess; for Mardochai, her uncle, had so instructed her.