=Significance of Nehemiah's Work.= In rebuilding the walls, Nehemiah prepared the way for that general return of the Jews, which is implied in the seventh chapter of Nehemiah and confirmed by the later facts of history. The story of Ezra is a late tradition regarding one of these return movements. Nehemiah, in reorganizing the method of distributing the temple dues to the priests and Levites, in discountenancing foreign marriages, in enforcing the Sabbath law, and in providing for the support of the temple, laid the foundations for the institution of the new priestly law and the reorganization of the ceremonial service, which is associated with his name. Nehemiah was thus the restorer of that new Jewish state which rose on the ruins of the old. =Extension of Jewish Territory to the Northwest.= Shut in on the south by the Edomites and on the east by the Dead Sea and Jordan valley, the Jewish community naturally expanded toward the northwest. In doing so it followed the great highways, which ran northwestward from Jerusalem out upon the Philistine Plain. By virtue of the new life and strength infused into the Judean community by Nehemiah, it was able to cope with the Samaritan community and to push its boundaries northward. Within two or three centuries the arable Jewish territory was nearly doubled and included such important cities as Ai, Bethel, and Timnath in the north, and Ajalon, the Horons, Modein, as well as Ono and Lod, the later Lydda, far out on the Philistine Plain. =Development of Judaism During the Latter Part of the Persian Period.= The Babylonian and Persian age as a whole was for the Jews a period of overwhelming calamity and discouragement, and yet during the latter part of this era scattered remnants of the race began again to restore the temple and capital city. During this era the foundations of Judaism were laid along the lines first outlined by Ezekiel. The priests and scribes succeeded to the earlier authority of the kings and prophets. Loyalty to the law and ritual took the place of the ancient loyalty to the king and state. Judaism, helpless and exposed to the attacks of its powerful foes, stood apart from the rest of the world, finding its joy more and more in worship, in trust in Jehovah, and in the noble ideals and hopes that are voiced in the psalms and wisdom writings of this period. [Illustration: MAP OF PALESTINE, CONTAINING PLACES FOR MACCABEAN PERIOD. THE M.-N. CO., BUFFALO, N. Y. ] XXI THE SCENES OF THE MACCABEAN STRUGGLE