II PAST AND FUTURE But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers who were ancient men that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy; so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people.-EZRA iii. 12, 13. THIS book begins with an account of the release of the Jews from captivity in Babylon, and their return to Palestine. When the great Babylonian empire fell, Cyrus the conqueror, with wise statecraft, sought to conciliate many sections of his subjects by allowing the deported populations to return to their native land. The Jews were allowed to restore the ruined sanctuary of Jehovah. Permission to return to Jerusalem would have been nothing to the Jews, unless they were permitted to make the holy city once more the centre of their religion. So the object of the return is expressly stated as "to go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build . . . the house of the Lord God of Israel, which is in Jerusalem." The enterprise called forth the energies and the latent patriotism and religious enthusiasm of the best of the people. Those whose hearts had been sore for God and country, those who kept believing and hoping through the darkest days, took it as an omen that the light had arisen at last. The worthiest of the race set themselves to the task, and the flickering hope of the nation was fanned into a bright flame. There was enthusiasm, the enthusiasm called forth by a heroic enterprise. Spirits mounted high, and hopes mounted higher. Nothing seemed impossible to them in this state; no sacrifice seemed too great to be called on to make. Their liberality kept pace with their enthusiasm. "They offered freely for the house of God, to set it up in its place." Difficulties about ways and means are never unsurmountable when the people are heartily in earnest about any good work. These Jews with their old-world problem before them, to rebuild a temple worthy of their God in a ruined and impoverished land, made thus a good beginning. Without Solomon's opportunity, they had to rival Solomon's achievement. In the first case the great king of a prosperous nation set himself to build a beautiful temple. All that wealth and care and influence could produce was lavished on the task. No workman's axe, no ponderous hammer rang; How great the contrast here! With excessive poverty, and few resources, permitted only on sufferance to revisit their native land and rebuild the temple amid the ruins of a city, and with the neighbouring peoples jealously hostile, how could they hope to emulate the work of Solomon in all his glory? Ultimately the builders laid the foundations of the temple. This was made a great occasion, a religious act with impressive ceremonial. At the moment when the ceremony was completed, the people rent the air with a mighty shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. How like that crowd to the many crowds which have gathered since for similar purposes! What a humanly natural mixture of thoughts and feelings was there displayed! Notice the chief constituents of that crowd. They were broadly two-the young and the old. That classification, of course, may be made elsewhere, but here it has a special significance. Years ago the captivity had taken place. A new generation had grown up, to whom the old country and the old institutions were traditions. They heard of them as in a dream. This section, the greater part of the crowd, looked upon the proceedings as eminently satisfactory. They were rejoiced at the good beginning, and were full of hopeful eager ness. But some of the priests and Levites and people were ancient men, and had known and loved the old temple. Strangers in a strange land they had been for long. They had grown old, but had not forgotten. They had fed their faith on memories of the old house of the Lord, beautiful for situation, the joy of every heart. Recollections crowded in on them. Their eyes looked, and saw not the present scene, but far back into other years. The thoughts and associations of these days surged into their minds, till a mist rose over the present. Oh those glorious days, hallowed and consecrated by blest memory! What had been since then in the lot of each of them? Joy and sorrow, hope and despair, life and death. The tears were in their eyes, eyes which had been tearless, since "by the rivers of Babylon they sat down and wept when they remembered Zion." And when now they were startled from dreamland by the great shout of joy, because the foundations were laid, it seemed a mockery, and they wept with a loud voice. "The people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of weeping." Not be joyful, and We have all to Is it not a pathetic scene the writer calls before us here? And it is such a natural human trait, that we find no difficulty in entering into the incident and almost seeing it occur before our eyes. The difference between the two classes in that company is a radical one. It can be seen in the difference of attitude between an old man and a young man. that there is a distinct and abrupt line of demarcation, cutting up a man's life into youth and age. It is a subtle distinction, which creeps gradually into a man's way of looking at things. It does not mean that it is the gift of youth to only the privilege of age to be sad. live in the present, but we have another life which is not bound by time and space. The young lives this life largely on the future; the old tends to live it in the past. Picture an old man with a boy standing at his knee. The light of the eastern sun is in the boy's eyes; the shadow of the western sun is drawn over the old man's face; the formula on his lips is, "When I was a boy"; on the boy's it is, "When I become a man." The one looks back and within; the other looks out over the hills and up over the clouds. It is not, or ought not to be, the older |