of the race and which will be studied in connection with the events themselves."-KENT.

VI. The Puritans of the Jewish Church. "The one saving element, aside from the faith of the Jews who had remained in the dispersion, was the small but earnest party of faithful Puritans, who still cherished all that the community as a whole had lost. By the author of the Book of Malachi they are called 'the righteous' and 'they who feared the Lord' (3:16, 18). In the psalms they are variously styled 'the pious,' 'the just,' 'the meek,' or 'the poor and needy.' As these terms suggest, they did not belong to the rich and influential classes; nor were they popular with the community at large, for their piety was a constant protest against its pet sins. Persecution at the hands of their worldly brethren was for them a common experience. Many passages in the psalms of the period voice their woes:

"Evidently they were the victims of the oppression, the injustice, and treachery of the rich and ruling classes, whom the prophets of the period, as well as Nehemiah, so harshly condemn. The psalms reveal the intensity of the animosity between the two parties (see especially 69:2228; 35). The meek were the reproach of their adversaries because their afflictions were regarded, in accordance with the old dogma of proportionate rewards, as indubitable evidence that they had committed grievous crimes. The sense of sin well-nigh crushed them (51). Passionately and oft they prayed:

"Let me not be ashamed,

For I put my trust in Thee;

Let integrity and uprightness preserve me,
For I wait on Thee."

-KENT.

VII. Sabbath and Holy Days. "The exiles in whom our interest is centered had, we may suppose, little appreciation of the civilization by which they were surrounded. It was to them the expression of a religion foreign to their own, and in their eyes many of its customs must have been abominations. The defection of some of their number to this heathenism would make the remainder only more rigid in strengthening the institutions which still remained to them. They were deprived of many of the means of grace; there was all the more reason for holding on to what was left. Sacrifice could not be offered in a strange land. Even if the Temple had been standing, they could not have visited it. But some of the ordinances of Yahweh were still practicable. Two among these, because they were practicable, and because they served to emphasize the difference between Jews and Gentiles, received new importance. These were circumcision and the Sabbath. Observance of them now became a test of fidelity to Yahweh.

"The mark of distinction was the observance of the Sabbath. This seems to have been originally a Babylonian institution, naturalized in Canaan at an early day. Cessation of labor one day in seven cannot be thought of a nomadic or pastoral people. The life of the peasant is the one which gives opportunity for such an observance.

"The profanation of the Sabbath is sacrilege-like the profanation of other sacred things. A people in earnest in carrying out the idea of consecration would find strong motives impelling them to the observance of the sacred day. We are not surprised that passages originating in or after the Exile lay great stress upon the day. One of the editors of Jeremiah intimates that the calamities of the house of David might have been avoided had the princes

been careful in the matter of the Sabbath. Other passages originating in or after the Exile exhort to strict observance of the day, and the climax is reached in the time of Nehemiah or later, when desecration was punished by the civil authorities."-H. P. SMITH.

VIII. The Exile a Blessing in Disguise. "The very overthrow of the Judean State and the destruction of the national life had the effect of entirely reconstructing the religion of Israel. Even in the last periods of Judean independence there had been evolving a movement which had for its aim to spiritualize religion as much as possible. In order to guard it against growing worldly and to avoid with all care the danger of sullying its purity, the leaders in this movement had aimed at separating religion from its foundation in nature and basing it absolutely upon itself and the spirit.

"This was a dispensation of Providence; for thus it became possible for the religion of Israel to survive the fall of the State and the destruction of the nation, and yet to preserve them both by reconstructing them. If the destruction of the body had freed the spirit and given it an unhampered career, this spirit must needs shape for itself a new body. And Israel could constitute this new body only if it developed in accordance with the demands. of this spirit. Israel must become a covenant nation; that is, after Israel had broken the covenant and therefore perished as a nation, it must become a new people which will identify itself with the covenant, or league with God, and which is resurrected and remains alive only for and through it. Quite literally the ground had been snatched from beneath the feet of the nation, which was therefore obliged to seek another ground and foundation, and this

was necessarily religious. Thus religion became one with this nationality which completely subordinated itself to religion and proposed to be nothing but its body and mouthpiece.

"With correct instinct, guided by the prophet Ezekiel, the religious genius of Israel laid its universal mission upon God for the time being, and took up the immediately more urgent task of getting the mastery in its own house, of driving ineradicable roots in Israel itself. Accordingly there is accomplished in the Babylonian Exile, and as a consequence of it, that remarkable transformation which makes of the Judean State a Jewish Church, of the Israelitish people a Jewish religious congregation. For the history of religion there is perhaps no other period in the history of the people of Israel of equal importance and significance with the half century of the Babylonian Exile, from 586 to 537 B. C."-CORNILL.

The New Temple.

Lesson Passage: Haggai, Chapters 1-2.

The Great Captivity began with that of Jehoiakim in 608 B. C., and ends with the first return of the Jews under the decree of Cyrus in 536 B. C. Babylon had fallen before Cyrus of Persia in 538 B. C. He was a great warrior, a man of vast ambition, and a skilful diplomat and statesman. He had a large tolerance for men's religious beliefs, and sought by such a policy to entrench and secure his power. His decree favoring the Jewish patriots was both wise and generous. It is claimed by many modern students that the words of the Great Unnamed prophet belong to this period. This unknown prophet was uttering his words of comfort and reassurance. Watchful of the times, seizing the opportunities and hopes of this period of political upheaval in Babylon, he saw in Cyrus the answer of his prophetic prayers, and saw in Cyrus the mighty deliverer, as in the following passage:

"Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue the nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the twoleaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;

"I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:

"And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

"For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.