"On the other hand, I believe more. I believe the Lord is too great a God to be confined to Jews' notions. They belittle him. I love Ezra for personal reasons; but I wish the Lord would take him to heaven in a chariot of fire, if he would only take along our Tirshatha, Nehemiah, to drive it. Nehemiah, you know, is in Susa now. I hope the Persian king will keep him there. Nehemiah is a bigot. He insists on driving out of Jerusalem every woman whose blood is not of the purest Jewish stock, forcibly divorcing her from her husband, and disinheriting her children." "What argument can they advance for such harsh measures?" "Oh, the need of pure blood; the fact that Solomon got into trouble through marrying foreign wives; the fact that the children of mothers who were Gentiles would not be stiff enough in keeping up strictly Jewish customs. I admit that the mixing of bloods has not strengthened pure Judaism of late, and that some whom Nehemiah calls the half-breeds are pulling up as fast as he plants. I am not a rebel, not a traitor to my people, because I want to see the Jewish religion broadened and liberalized, until you Baalites even can worship at our altars. Our old prophecies speak of our light enlightening the Gentiles. But how can that be if we shut our light in the stone lantern of our own notions and customs?" "Does Malachi hold closely with Ezra and Nehemiah?" asked Marduk. "That I cannot say. I hope not, for Malachi is the coming power in Jerusalem. He seems inspired at times; and, for that matter, he once told me he thought he was; that he felt the impulse of thoughts that came from beyond himself. He said something like this: 'At times my holiest feelings seem unholy; my highest thoughts grovelling. A sense of the law of the Lord binds my sense of right, as a vast crystal holds within it some speck of dirt that glistens.' He says, also, he has impressions he cannot utter; as if he stood in the presence of some glorious being who was coming to be the King of Israel. He cannot shake off the feeling. But here we are at my booth." CHAPTER XXIII. The two young men turned in at a little gateway leading from the street, entered a small court, and climbed a stone stairway that ran up the outside of the building to the roof. A booth of four upright poles, covered with brush and leaves, made a shelter from the noon sun that was beating hot upon the stone parapets. The repast showed that Manasseh was as free in living as he was in thinking. The richest condiments and wines of various vintages were used in a familiar manner, and evinced that Manasseh was in no need of instruction in the art of feasting from even the travelled Marduk.