=5. The Work of Ezra and Nehemiah.=――Both Ezra and Nehemiah were men of the best type of Jewish character. They loved the Lord ‘with all their heart and soul and might,’ which may be taken to mean using brain and heart and hands in the service. They willingly left the ease and comfort of court life for rough work of all kinds in Palestine. They desired to help their brethren in every possible way. They found plenty of preaching to be needed, and plenty, too, of work of a more practical sort. With equal energy they set about both. The walls of Jerusalem were in ruins. These, they wisely thought, ought to be repaired and rebuilt, for a people whose defences are weak are at the mercy of all. It was no light task; for the Samaritans, led by Sanballat, harassed and hindered the workers by every means in their power. They spoke against them and insulted them, and when they found evil words fail, they tried fighting. The Jewish leaders were equal to the occasion; they gave their men weapons as well as tools, and in the end courage and patience won. The walls were rebuilt and the governor’s house was fortified, and Nehemiah was able to go back for a while to his court duties. Meanwhile Ezra had been busy in another way. The defences of the religion as well as of the city had breaches and gaps in it. Many had married among the heathen, and were bringing up their children to a weak and most hurtful mixed belief. With a three days’ notice Ezra called the congregation together. Then, without any roundabout talk, he said to them, ‘You have sinned; put away your strange wives; do God’s pleasure.’ It was a hard bidding. God’s pleasure and man’s pleasure are often one and the same, but not always. To be good and to be happy is not uncommon, but occasionally if one wants to be good one has to be unhappy. There comes a conscious choosing between the doing of God’s pleasure and of our own pleasure, as to these Jews of old. They made the higher and the harder choice. From love of God, and in obedience to His law, they gave up their ‘strange,’ sweet, unlawful loves. With people in such a mood the rest of Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s reforms were comparatively easy. It was grand material to work upon. There was some resistance on the part of the more well-off families, who liked to be left alone, but the efforts of Ezra and Nehemiah for the good of the nation were not relaxed nor weakened thereby. They insisted on the proper observance of the Sabbath, they resettled the rights of property, and they restored the law of Moses to its place as an inspired code for constant reading and reference. Ezra has been called the second Moses, and the work he did was certainly of the same sort. Moses the lawgiver, with direct Divine help, made a tribe into a nation. Ezra the Scribe, with indirect Divine help, made of a dispossessed nation an undying people. The means employed was the same in both cases――God’s Law. CHAPTER III.