We must now allow for an interval of some months. The chronological arrangement seems to have been as follows. Ezra and his company left Babylon in the spring, as Zerubbabel had done before him--at the same season as that of the great exodus from Egypt under Moses. Each of these three great expeditions began with the opening of the natural year, in scenes of bright beauty and hopefulness. Occupying four months on his journey, Ezra reached Jerusalem in the heat of July. It could not have been very long after his arrival that the news of the foreign marriages was brought to him by the princes, because if he had spent any considerable time in Jerusalem first he must have found out the state of affairs for himself. But now we are transported to the month of December for the meeting of the people when the covenant of divorce is to be put in force. Possibly some of the powerful leaders had opposed the summoning of such a gathering, and their hindrance may have delayed it; or it may have taken Ezra and his counsellors some time to mature their plans. Long brooding over the question could not have lessened the scribe's estimate of its gravity. But the suggestion of all kinds of difficulties and the clear perception of the terrible results which must flow from the contemplated reformation did not touch his opinion of what was right, or his decision, once reached, that there must be a clearing away of the foreign elements, root and branch, although they had entwined their tendrils about the deepest affections of the people. The seclusion and mourning of Ezra is recorded in Ezra x. 6. The next verse carries us on to the preparation for the dreadful assembly, which, as we must conclude, really took place some months later. The summons was backed up by threats of confiscation and excommunication. To this extent the great powers entrusted to Ezra by the king of Persia were employed. It looks as if the order was the issue of a conflict of counsels in which that of Ezra was victorious, for it was exceedingly peremptory in tone and it only gave three days notice. The people came, as they were bound to do, for the authority of the supreme government was behind the summons; but they resented the haste with which they had been called together, and they pleaded the inconvenience of the season for an open-air meeting. They met in the midst of the winter rains; cold and wet they crouched in the temple courts, the picture of wretchedness. In a hot, dry country so little provision is made for inclement weather, that when it comes the people suffer from it most acutely, so that it means much more distress to them than to the inhabitants of a chill and rainy climate. Still it may seem strange that, with so terrible a question as the complete break-up of their homes presented to them, the Jews should have taken much account of the mere weather even at its worst. History, however, does not shape itself according