in the sixth year of his reign. He had probably sufficient opportunity to become ac quainted with the present character and position of the Jews, and with the claims to his favor which they derived from the edicts of Cyrus and Darius. At all events, in the seventh year of his reign, he indicated his knowledge of those edicts and his willingness to enforce them, by authorizing "Ezra the priest, and a scribe of the Law of the God of Heaven" to proceed to Jerusalem "to beautify the house of Jehovah," and to establish the ecclesiastical and civil institutions with greater firmness and order than they had yet acquired. His powers were very large. He was commissioned to appoint judges, superior and inferior, to rectify abuses, to enforce the observance of the law, to punish the refractory with fines, imprisonment, banishment, or even with death, according to the degree of their offences. He was also permitted to make a collection for the service of the temple among those Hebrews who chose to remain in the land of their exile; and the king and his council not only largely contributed toward the same object, but the ministers of the royal revenues west of the Euphrates were charged to furnish Ezra with whatever (within certain limits) of silver, corn, wine, oil and salt (without limit) which he might require for the service of the temple. Such persons of the Hebrew race as thought proper to return with Ezra to their own land, were permitted and invited to do so. From the whole tenor of this commission it is evident that the God of the Hebrews was still held in high respect at the Persian court; and, by a new concession, all his ministers, even to the lowest nethinim, were exempted from tribute, and thus put on an equality with the Persians and the Medes. For these favors some writers would assign "the solicitations of Esther" as the motive. But it is not clear that the king knew she was a Jewess. It was certainly perfectly competent for Esther to make the king better acquainted with the claims of the God she served and of the people to whom she belonged; nor should she be blamed for employing, or the king for receiving, such influence. But there were other and adequate means through which "the great king" might acquire this knowledge, at which he certainly arrived. To the series of splendid acknowledgments extracted from these illustrious monarchs through the captivity and vassalage of the Jews, let us add that of Artaxerxes, whose commission to Ezra orders: "Whatsoever is commanded by THE GOD OF HEAVEN let it be diligently done for the house of THE GOD OF HEAVEN; lest there be wrath [from Him] against the realm of the king and his sons."

It is worthy of remark however, that the decree of Artaxerxes was limited to the same object-the temple-as the edicts of former kings; and that no mention is made of the walls, from which it appears that the king was not yet prepared to concede that Jerusalem should be fortified.

The rendezvous of the party gathering for this second caravan was by the river Ahava, where the number assembled was found to consist of sixty "houses," containing one thousand seven hundred and fifty-four (adult?) males, so that, with women and children, there were probably not less than six thousand persons. When Ezra surveyed this party it was with much chagrin that he found not one of the tribe of Levi among them, notwithstanding the exemption from tribute; and it was not without difficulty that two families of priests were induced to join the emigrants.

Considering the treasure with which they were charged, and the number of helpless women and children of the party, there was much ground to apprehend danger from the Arabs infesting the desert over which the caravan must pass, and who then, as now, were wont to assault, or at least to levy large contributions on caravans too weak or too timid to resist them. Ezra therefore appointed a special season for fasting and prayer beside the river, that they might, as it were, throw themselves upon the special protection and guidance of Jehovah: for, as Ezra ingenuously confesses, "I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to defend us against the enemy by the way; because we had spoken unto the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him, but his power and his wrath is against all that forsake him.""

Their confidence was not in vain, for they all arrived safely at Jerusalem after a journey of four months. They set out on the first month of the seventh year of the king's reign, and reached their destination on the first day of the fifth month, B. Č. 457.

Of all the improvements and regulations which Ezra introduced into Judea, the book which bears his name only records his exertions in removing the heathen women

with whom matrimonial connexions had very generally been formed by the Jewsto such an extent indeed that even the sons of the high-priest Jeshua, and many of the other priests, had fallen into this grievous error. To annul these marriages, was a measure, however harsh to the natural affections, indispensably necessary as a security against a relapse into idolatry.

While Ezra was thus, and by other means, laboring to raise the character and improve the condition of the Hebrews in Judea, all the Jews in the Persian dominions were suddenly threatened with entire extermination. Haman, an Amalekite, and as such, an inveterate foe of the Hebrew nation, occupied the chief place in the confidence and service of the Persian king. His paltry pride being irritated by the apparent disrespect of a Jewish officer, named Mordecai (the uncle of Queen Esther, but not known as such), he laid a plot for the massacre of the whole nation and the spoliation of their goods. The book of Esther, to which we must refer the reader, relates at large the particulars of the plot, and shows how the machinations of the Amalekite were defeated by the address and piety of Queen Esther, and turned upon the unprincipled contriver himself, who was destroyed with all his family, and Mordecai (by virtue of an old and neglected service) promoted to his place.

In the narrative of this transaction, the attention is arrested by the further illustration, offered in the case of Haman and afterward of Mordecai, of the distinction and wealth which foreigners and captives-or, at least, persons of foreign and captive origin-were enabled to attain. The rank is obvious; and as to the wealth they were allowed to acquire, no more striking illustration can be afforded than by the fact that Haman, to gratify his barbarous whim, was in a condition to offer the king a gratuity of ten thousand talents of silver, to defray the probable deficiency of the royal revenue by the proscription of the Jews throughout the empire. This the king declined accepting. The amount, computed by the Babylonish talent, would be upward of two millions sterling; and this, it appears, was considerably short of the full amount of the Jewish tribute.

On this occasion, we also have another example of the mischievous consequences which might result from the king being unmindful of the heavy responsibility of caution, which was designed to be imposed by the well-meant law which precluded his decrees from being changed or repealed. For when Artaxerxes became convinced of the grievous wrong into which he had been led in decreeing the massacre of the Jews, it was beyond his power to recall the order he had issued. All he could do was to despatch swift couriers with a counter decree, empowering the Jews to stand upon their defence when assaulted, with the aid of whatever moral advantage they might derive from this indication of the present intentions of the king. On the ap pointed day, which had been destined to sweep the race of Israel from the face of the earth, the Jews were by no means wanting to themselves. They repelled their assailants by force of arms, and that with such effect, that in Susa itself eight hundred men fell by their hands, and in the different provinces seventy-five thousand. The slaughter among the Jews themselves is not stated, but must have been considerable.

This great deliverance has ever since been commemorated by the annual feast of Purim, or of Lots, so called from the lots which were superstitiously cast by Haman to find a propitious day for the massacre.

It was not until the twentieth year of his reign that Artaxerxes granted the longdelayed permission to build the walls of Jerusalem. It was then obtained at the instance of a Jew named Nehemiah, who held at the Persian court the high and confidential office of cup-bearer, or butler. He had become acquainted with the mortifications and insults to which the inhabitants of Jerusalem were exposed through the defenceless condition of their city; and the depression of his spirits, in consequence, was too strongly marked on his countenance to pass unnoticed by the king, who de manded the cause of his sadness. As it was no ordinary misdemeanor to exhibit sadness in the presence of "the king of kings," Nehemiah was much alarmed, but answered, "Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire ?" The king encouraged him to declare his wishes freely, and the result was that Artaxerxes consented to dispense with his services at court for a few years, and gave him the appointment of tirshata, or civil governor, of Judea, in succession to Zerubbabel, whose death about this time might furnish an additional