Nehemiah next introduced the strict observance of the Sabbath, which had been but negligently observed hitherto. The Law had certainly forbidden all labour on that day, but it had not defined what really was to be considered as labour. At all events, the Judæans who lived in the provinces were ignorant on that point, for on the Sabbath they pressed the wine, loaded their beasts of burden with corn, grapes, figs, and drove them to market into the city of Jerusalem. As soon as Nehemiah discovered that the Sabbath was treated like an ordinary week-day, he assembled the country people, and explained that they were sinning against God's Law, and they listened to him, and followed his injunctions. But he had a more difficult task in abolishing an old-established custom. Tyrian merchants were in the habit of appearing in Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day, bringing fish fresh from the sea, and they found ready customers. But Nehemiah ordered that henceforth all the gates should be closed on the Sabbath eve, so that no merchant could enter the city. These ordinances were strictly enforced, and from that time the Sabbath was rigorously observed. The strict observance of the Law, enjoined by Ezra, was insisted upon by Nehemiah; he built the wall of separation between Judæans and Gentiles so securely, that it was impossible to break through it. The Judæans who were discontented with this separation and the severity of the Law were obliged to leave the Judæan community, and form a sect of their own. Nehemiah himself probably lived to see the formation of the first sect among Jews, and as he himself might virtually be held responsible for it, he thought it necessary to justify his proceedings, and to set forth his own meritorious part in raising the fallen community. He composed a kind of memoir, in which he related what he had achieved in his first and second visits to Jerusalem. At intervals he inserted the prayer that God would remember him for what he had done for the people and for his services in behalf of the Sanctuary and its preservation. It was a kind of self-justification written in his old age, and his name has remained eternally in the remembrance of a grateful people. To him and to Ezra, the creators of that spiritual current which has since attained an irresistible force in the Jewish world, grateful posterity has attributed all beneficial institutions whose origin is unknown. CHAPTER XX. THE SOPHERIC AGE.