The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-22

assees<.s..sf s,.ss Tz1 T1A ward the thousands
 >'''- of graves of his comrades that dotted old Virginia s hills, pulled his ragged gray cap down over his brow and began the slow and painful journey" toward home-surely he found what was a land of plenty and abundance as compared to the Jerusalem and Judah which the Jews returning from the 70-year captivity in Babylonia found awaiting them. I Mir. Grady says the sons of Dixie stepped from the trenches into the fur row; that the horses that charged General Sherman's lines, marched be- fore the blow. And, that the fields that ran red in April were green with the harvests in June.
 Not so with Judah in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. The Jews who return ed in poverty bequeathed worse pov- erty to. the next generation. Many of them had borrowed money which they could not pay, and had been sold as slaves to. their own countrymen. Around them on every side of their borders, were enemies racial and relig- ious. These robbed them of their crops and cattle. They sent false re- ports limiting at sedition and disloyalty | IO tuc I cESAdH SONcEukueHCs
 The returned Jews had neither bread nor domestic tranquility; neither polit- ical or religious freedom. These con ditions had gone on for nearly hun dred years after the return. They had grown worse instead of better.
 Just at the time when the land was in deepest need the God of Israel raised up two great statesmen to help 1 h10 sAl,
 Ezra
 Ezra was a priest and prophet. He had not gone back to Jerusalem with the returning captives. He had re- mained in Babylon. So had the ma jority of his countrymen.
 The various hooks of the Old Testa- ment had been written a long time. They had been written separately. Up to the time of Ezra, each of these books had remained a separate book There were no printing presses. There were only a few copies of these sepa- rate hand-written books of the Bible.
 Ezra began .. to search everywhere among Jewish, families for copies of these different books. He borrowed every one he could find long enough to make copy for future use. Finally he put all the different books of the Old Testament together into a single volume of scroll, and labelled it 'The Book of the Law"
 With this great task accomplished he set out from Babylon and went to Jerusalem. With him he took a great group of scribes. Men who gave their lives to studying, and copying and teaching the law, were called "scribes" meaning writers. Of these Ezra was the first and greatest.
 Nehemiah
 While Ezra was going ahead with the renaissance or re-birth of Hebrew literature, and recalling the Jews to new interest in, consideration for and obedience to the law, Nehemiah was engaged in a different line of construc- tive organization, helping his people in the rebuilding of the nation. ..
 Nehemiah had also remained in Babylon. He is remembered as the nobleman at the court of Artaxerxes. He was "cup-bearer" to the king in the palace at Shushan.
 One day a visiting Jew named Han ami came from Jerusalem to Shushan. Nehemiah asked him for a detailed report of conditions in Jerusalem. That report easily calls to mind what MT. Grady said in Boston during his great speech on "The New South."
 Nehemiah was crushed by what Hananis report revealed. He begged his king for leave of absence to visit Jerusalem. The king granted it. En- couraged by the favor, he reviewed to Artaxerxes the report brought by Han ami, and asked for a commission to re- build the walls of Jerusalem. The ancient city of the Jews situated now on the western border of Persia's do- main a thousand miles away.
 The necessary orders, passports and commission were prepared, and soon Nhemiah was in Jerusalem standing be- fore the rulers of the city with plans, maps, blue-prints and specifications spread before them, and the great prof. ect definitely outlined and made clear to them.
 Ground was broken. The work be- gan. Each family in Jerusalem agreed to build part of the wall. One would build just 50 much of the wall as stood opposite his house and lot; another so much as abutted on his property the goldsmiths underwrote so many feet or yards; likewise the druggists, and so on throughout the whole population. The people had a mind to work.
 Nehemiah was an organizer. He di- vided the workers into two shifts. Half the people rested while the other half, itself divided equally, worked on the construction or did armed guard duty.
 Soon news that the walls of Jeru- salem were rising from their ruins reached the jealous little enemy na- tions that surrounded the Jews. Chief among these was Samaria. The leader from this quarter was Sanballat. What are these feeble Jews doing?" He asked derisively. "Why, if fox should go up, he could break down their little wall" parroted Tobiah, Sanballat's runner "dog-robber," the American doughboy would call him.
 Another leader from an enemy tribe,