"The joy of the Lord is your strength."--_Prov. 5:17._ GOOD Nehemiah built up the wall of Jerusalem; and his friend Ezra did all he could to teach the Jews to keep the Law of God rightly. It was Ezra who gathered together the five books of Moses, and collected the writings of the prophets, and wrote out the history of the kings, and put nearly all the Old Testament in order as we have it now. And Ezra and Nehemiah took care to teach the people to keep the Sabbath again, as the Fourth Commandment had taught them. Nehemiah used to have the gates of the city shut up, that no stranger might bring any burthen in, and that no one might come in to sell or buy on God's holy day. And then they kept the Feast of the Tabernacles. It was a most beautiful feast. All the people went and cut down great boughs of myrtle, olive, pine, and citron, and willow trees, and built up arbors with them, where they lived for seven whole days, to put them in mind of how their fathers had lived when they came out of Egypt. And on the great day of the feast, every Jew went up to the Temple with a green bough in his arm, and stood in the court, and all the priests came out on the steps with palm-branches, and with silver trumpets. Then the trumpets were sounded, and everybody waved their branches for joy. And the priests began a beautiful rejoicing psalm, and at its most joyful verses the people waved their palms again. [Illustration: A SOLEMN FAST AND REPENTANCE OF THE PEOPLE.--Neh. 9:1,2.] At night all the court of the Temple was lighted up with great lamps, to put the people in mind that the Lord is our light. How beautiful it must have been, and how happy all the people were to have come back from worshipping idols, and being punished in a strange land, to praise their own true God once more, who blessed and made them happy. QUESTIONS. 1. Who were the two good men who governed the Jews? 2. What did Ezra collect together? 3. Who taught good men how to write the Bible? 4. What parts of the Bible did Ezra put together? 5. What commandment were Ezra and Nehemiah careful about? 6. How did they keep people from breaking the Fourth Commandment? 7. What great feast did they keep? [Illustration] Fortieth Sunday. _THE COMING OF THE LORD._ FIRST READING. "The fulness of the time was come."--_Gal. 4:14._ [Illustration: SHEPHERD] THERE was a long time after the Jews came home during which we do not know much about them. Only they had quite left off worshipping idols, and stood out bravely when a bad king wanted to make them do so. But they were not good in other ways. They quarrelled among themselves a great deal. One set, who were called Pharisees, were very proud and hard-hearted; and another set, who were called the Sadducees, would not believe or obey any of the Bible that was written after the time of Moses--none of the Prophets nor of the Psalms.