All this was a severe shock to the young peasant. He, himself, born and raised on a farm, had inherited his father's estates free from debt. He lived simply, worked hard, saved a neat sum every year--and imagined that every one else was doing the same. Awakened to the real condition of affairs, Micah now determined to leave his estates in the care of his trusted overseers and to go to the great and famed cities of his land, to study at first hand the causes that had made possible the terrible economic and social wrongs in his section of the country. CHAPTER II. _The Cause of the Common People._ Micah, the Moreshtite, came to Jerusalem when the capital was at comparative peace. The struggle between King Ahaz and the Prophet Isaiah had narrowed down to an armed neutrality, as it were--the king was paying his tributes to Tiglath-Pileser and the prophet was preparing his "Remnant" for the day when the crown prince, Hezekiah, would come to the throne. The young peasant took no sides and embraced no causes in Jerusalem. He stood aside, the better to study conditions as an onlooker. To his great dismay and sorrow, he found the situation even worse than he had imagined it. It was true of the rich and mighty of the capital that "They covet fields and seize them, And houses, and take them away. They oppress a man and his house, Even a man and his heritage." This much was clear on the surface of things. Rapacity on the part of the rich meant oppression of the poor; increase of power for the mighty meant decrease of opportunity for the humble tiller of the soil and for the wage earner. Seeing all this and understanding it, Micah felt himself impelled to fight the cause of the common people. Conditions and a sympathetic soul thus made Micah a Prophet. One of the people, he spoke in their behalf with the feeling and passion of a man who has been through the mill of bitter experience: Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, As when they glean the grapes of the vintage: There is no cluster to eat, Nor first-ripe fig which my soul desireth. The godly man has perished out of the earth, And the upright among men is no more: They all lie in wait for blood; They hunt every man his brother with a net. Both hands are put forth for evil, To do it diligently. The prince asketh and the judge is ready for reward, And the great man, he uttereth the evil of his soul; Thus they weave it together. The best of them is as a brier; The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. A man's enemies are the men of his own house. Where shall he look for help and guidance--he, a commoner, without power, without influence? To whom shall he go for instruction, for inspiration, to struggle against conditions in the face of which he was helpless?