The King's Cup-Bearer Part 9

Whom did Nehemiah choose for this post of enormous trust? One was his brother Hanani, the very one who had come to see him in Persia. Why, he would never have even thought of doing this great work, if it had not been for Hanani; and he felt he could thoroughly trust him, and rely upon him entirely.

His other choice was Hananiah, the ruler of the palace or the fort, which was a tower, standing in the temple courts on the spot on which, in Roman days, stood the Tower of Antonia. Nehemiah tells us exactly why he made choice of the man Hananiah.

'He was a faithful man, and feared G.o.d above many.'

He was a faithful man, thoroughly trustworthy and reliable. He feared G.o.d above many, and therefore Nehemiah knew that he would be kept safe and free from sin. 'So did not I,' he had said of himself, 'because of the fear of G.o.d; that fear held me back from sin,' and he felt sure it would be the same with Hananiah. He feared G.o.d, and therefore he could be depended upon.

These two rulers, Hanani and Hananiah, planned out the defence of the city. They divided the wall amongst all the men in Jerusalem, holding each man responsible for the safety of that part of the wall which lay nearest to his own house. Then, by Nehemiah's orders, they saw that the guards took care that the gates were not only carefully closed every night, but that they were kept closed till the sun was hot, that is, till some hours after sunrise. These orders were most necessary, seeing that there were traitors inside the gates as well as enemies without.

It was the sixth month of the Jewish year when the walls were finished.

Then came Tisri, the seventh month, the greatest and grandest of the months. The Jews say that G.o.d made the world in the month Tisri, and in it they have no less than two feasts and one great fast.

On the first day of the month Tisri was held the Feast of Trumpets, or the day of blowing. On that day trumpets or horns were blown all day long in Jerusalem; on the house-tops, and from the courts and gardens, as well as from the temple.

Obedient to the voice of the trumpets, at early dawn the people all gathered together, and stood by the water-gate, in a large open s.p.a.ce suitable for such a gathering. This gate is supposed to have been somewhere at the south-east of the temple courts, and to have taken its name from the fact that through it the temple servants, the Nethinims and the Gibeonites, carried water from the dragon well into the city.

Here a huge pulpit had been erected, not such a pulpit as we find in our churches, but such an one as is to be seen in the synagogues of Jerusalem, a pulpit as large as a small room, and capable of holding a large number of persons.

The pulpit by the water-gate was a raised platform, made for the purpose. In it stood Ezra the scribe, and beside him stood thirteen of the chief men of Jerusalem. Meshullam was there; but one man was conspicuous by his absence. Elias.h.i.+b, the high priest, who should surely have been found taking a princ.i.p.al part in the solemn service of the day, was nowhere to be seen.

Before the great pulpit was gathered together an enormous crowd, men, women, and children, all those who were old enough to understand anything having been brought there, that they might listen to all that went on.

It was early in the morning, soon after sunrise, when the great company met together. The blowing of the trumpets ceased, and there was brought out by a Levite an old roll of parchment. What was it? It was the Book of the Law, the Bible of Nehemiah's day, consisting of the five books of Moses.

Slowly and reverently Ezra unrolled the law in the sight of all the people; and they, sitting below, watched him, and as soon as the book was opened they stood up, to show their respect and their reverence for the Word of G.o.d.

Then the reading began, and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. For no less than six hours Ezra read on, from early morning until midday, yet still the people stood, still the people listened attentively. There was no stir in the crowd, no one asked what time it was, there was no shuffling of feet, no yawning, no fidgeting; in earnest, fixed attention the people listened.

As Ezra read, a body of Levites went about amongst the crowd, translating what he said. So long had the people lived in captivity that some of them had forgotten the old Hebrew, or had been brought up from children to talk the Chaldean tongue. Thus many of Ezra's words and phrases were quite unintelligible to them. So the Levites acted as interpreters; and besides explaining the words, they also opened out the meaning of what was read.

'The Levites caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book in the law of G.o.d distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.'

And at the end of six hours there came tears--there was not a dry eye in the crowd--men and women alike wept like children. There was Ezra in his pulpit, his voice faltering as he read, and there were the people below, sobbing as they heard the words.

What was the matter? What had filled them with grief? St. Paul tells us the secret of their tears (Rom. iii. 20).

'By the law is the knowledge of sin.'

You draw a line. How shall you know if it be straight or not? Lay the ruler beside it, and you will soon find out its crookedness.

You build a wall. How shall you tell if it be perpendicular? Bring the plumb-line, put it against it, and you will soon find out where the wall bulges.

You take up a drawing of wood, and hill, and tree; how shall you know if it be correctly sketched? Put beside it the master's copy, look from one to another, and you will soon discover the mistakes and imperfections of the pupil.

Take the perfect law of G.o.d, lay it beside your own life, as these people did, you will find out exactly what they found. You will find that you are a sinner, that you have left undone what ought to have been done, that you have done what ought not to have been done, and that you yourself are full of sin.

'Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.'

Have you done that? No! Then you are not like the copy.

'Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord thy G.o.d.'

Have you done that? No! Then you are not like the copy.

So felt the company at the water-gate, as they listened to the word that day. And with the knowledge came tears, bitter, sorrowful tears, as they thought of the past. Each man, woman, and child amongst them was ready to cry out

'Red like crimson, deep as scarlet, Scarlet of the deepest dye, Are the manifold transgressions, That upon my conscience lie.

G.o.d alone can count their number, G.o.d alone can look within, O the sinfulness of sinning, O the guilt of every sin!'

Some years ago there lived in Jerusalem a Scripture reader. He was an Austrian Jew, and he worked amongst the large Jewish population in Jerusalem. That man had been brought up to a very curious occupation.

For years he had maintained himself in a very strange way. His business was this--to take children to school every morning, and to bring them home again in the evening. Each morning he called at the various houses, he led the children out, he carried the little ones, some on his back and some in his arms, he chastised with a stick those who were inclined to play truant, and he landed them all safely at the school-door.

St. Paul, when he went to the Rabbi's school in Tarsus, was taken there by just such a man as that, a man who was paid by his parents to drive him to school regularly, and to see that he arrived there in good time.

This man was called in his day a Paidagogos, or Boy-driver.

Years afterwards, when the apostle was writing to the Galatians, he remembered his old Paidagogos, and he used him as an ill.u.s.tration. He said, in his epistle, that that boy-driver was like the law of G.o.d; just what the Paidagogos had done for him, that also the Word of G.o.d had done. That man had driven him to the school of the Rabbi, the law of G.o.d had driven him to the school of Christ. 'The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.'

The word schoolmaster does not mean the man who teaches, but it is this very word Paidagogos or Boy-driver.

How, then, does the law of G.o.d drive us to Christ? Because it makes us feel that we need saving, that we are sinners and cannot help ourselves, that if ever we are to see the inside of the golden gates of heaven, it must be by learning in the school of Christ, by learning to know Him as our Saviour, our atonement, our all in all.

Lord, save me, or I perish, for I cannot save myself! All my righteousness is as filthy rags, I myself am full of sin. There is no hope for me except in Thee!

So the Law is our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.

CHAPTER IX.

The Secret of Strength.

Who was the strongest person who ever lived? Surely there is no difficulty in answering that question, surely there has never been anyone to compare with Samson in wonderful feats of strength! Did he not alone and unaided rend a young lion in two, as easily as if it had been a kid? Did he not lift the ma.s.sive iron gates of Gaza from their hinges, carry them on his back for forty miles, and climb with them to the top of a high hill? Did he not overthrow an enormous building by simply leaning on the huge stone pillars that held it up? We see trials of strength and feats of strength nowadays, we may have seen a man who could with one blow of the sword cut a sheep in two, we may have seen another who, by the mere power of his fist, could snap an iron chain, yet what modern Samson, strong and powerful and mighty above his fellows though he may be, can equal or rival the old Samson of Bible story.

Yet after all are we right in calling Samson the strongest man? It all depends upon the kind of strength of which we are speaking. If we mean bodily strength, mere physical force, then undoubtedly Samson was the strongest man.

But is bodily strength the only kind of force or power a man can possess? Is it the chief kind of strength?

What is one name that we give to physical power; do we not call it _brute force_? Why do we call it this? Because it is force which we have in common with the brutes, nay, it is strength in which the brutes can surpa.s.s us. Take the strongest man who ever lived, give him the most powerful limbs, the strongest back, the greatest strength of muscle, what is that man compared with an elephant? The mighty elephant has more power in one limb than the man has in his whole body. Bodily strength is then, after all, a kind of strength that is worth comparatively little, and of which we have small cause to boast, for even an animal can easily surpa.s.s us in it.

A stronger man than Samson, where shall we find him? Come to the Senate House in Cambridge, look at that man hard at work on the examination papers. Look at him well, for you will see that man's name at the head of the list when it comes out. Look at his broad forehead, his quick eager eye, his earnest face. That man is the strongest man in England: strong, not in bodily strength, he would do but little on the football field, nor could he win a single prize in athletic sports; he is a thin, slight, fragile man, but he is strong in mind, powerful and mighty in brain. That man's memory is simply perfect, his powers of reasoning are faultless, his grasp of a subject is enormous, he is a giant in intellect.

Here then we have another kind of strength, mental strength; and inasmuch as the mind is vastly superior to the body, and inasmuch as power of mind is a power which the animals so far from rivalling man, possess only in a very limited degree, we shall be ready to admit that the student is stronger than Samson, because he is strong in a superior kind of strength.

But there is a stronger than he, and it is a woman. She is weak and delicate, and has certainly no bodily strength; she knows very little, for she is a poor, simple country girl; she has no mental strength, but she is stronger than Samson, stronger than the Cambridge student, because she is endued with a strength far superior to bodily or mental strength--she is strong in soul.

A great crowd of people was gathered on the sh.o.r.e that day in the county of Wigton in Scotland. There lay the wooded hills and the heathery moors, and the quiet sea dividing them like a peaceful lake. Two prisoners, carefully guarded, were brought down to the sh.o.r.e, one was an old woman with white hair, the other was a young and beautiful girl. Two stakes were driven into the sand, one close to the approaching sea, the other much nearer to the sh.o.r.e. The old woman was tied to the stake nearest to the sea, and the young girl to the other. The tide was out when they were taken there, but they were told that, unless they would deny the Master whom they loved, unless they would renounce the truth of G.o.d, there they must remain, until the high tide had covered them, and life was extinct.