It is no wonder that he conceived the ideal of a time of universal peace, in which God shall be the God of all the nations, an era in which all peoples shall come to Him, and believe in Him, and follow in His law, and live such just and righteous lives that there would be an end to war in all the earth: "It shall come to pass, in the end of days, That the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established at the top of the mountains, And it shall be exalted above the hills; And peoples shall flow unto it. And many nations shall go and say, 'Come ye, and let us go up to the mountains of the Lord, And to the house of the God of Jacob; And he will teach us of His ways, And we will walk in His paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, And He shall judge between the nations, And arbitrate for many peoples; And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more." THE COMMONER CHAPTER I. _His Awakening._ Sloping down from the Judean hills toward the plain of Philistia and the Mediterranean Sea is the Shefelah, or Lowlands, a section of Palestine, far-famed for its stretches of rich farm lands, vineyards and olive groves. These foothills were once the constant battlefield on which the Israelites from the hill country and the Philistines from the plain struggled for mastery; but, since the days of King Amaziah, who conquered Philistia soon after he came to the throne of Judah, in the year 798, the Shefelah, far away from the political turmoils in Samaria and Jerusalem, was one of the most peaceful and richest farm sections in Israel or Judah. Up in Samaria, in the year 734, Hoshea, son of Elah, had played the traitor and had bent his head to Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian conqueror. Up in Jerusalem, Ahaz, son of Jotham, had acted the coward and had slipped his neck under the Assyrian yoke. But down in the Shefelah, on the lower highlands, politics and political intrigues played little part in the lives of the humble peasant folk. Numerous towns and villages dotted the Shefelah, especially on the highway running northeast from Gaza, in Philistia, to Jerusalem, in Judah. These towns and villages were the centers where the neighboring farmers gathered at set times and where the many daily wage earners lived all the time. Rich and fertile sections like the Shefelah were the backbone, the strength and the power of Israel and Judah. While the high and mighty princes and merchants lived in the capitals and squandered their wealth, the simple and hard-working farm folk and wage earners made up the bone and muscle of the population, raised the necessities of life and, in times of need, furnished the sinews of war.