burden. Quietness is oppression. To be going, to be moving, to be doing, is youth's ceaseless impulse. "All of these qualities of youth are shot through with hope and high aspiration. Youth is forever dreaming dreams and seeing visions. It knows nothing of hard facts, takes account of no opposition, recognizes no impossibilities. What ought to be, can be, and what can be, must be. Youth, we bless thee for thy lesson! We join with Markham in his appeal that you shall continue to follow the Gleam : "In spite of the stare of the wise and the world's derision, "Read Margaret Slattery's exhortation: Strike while the iron is hot, hot with the passion of youth, hot with ambition, hot with the fever of accomplishment, hot with all the physical power of life; strike with a hand that is strong, with a heart that fears nothing, with a brain that is trained; strike while the iron is hot ere the years pass and the glow fades out and the iron lies in your hand a cold and unresponsive thing, when blow upon blow may be rained upon it and it will mean nothing. Strike while the iron is hot in God's name and the name of the Church.' 66 When will the Church set itself with all its zeal and passion, all the intelligence and skill it can summon to its aid to claim and train and use all the boundless resources of youth for Jesus Christ?" - Editorial in The Methodist Sunday School Journal. LESSON VI. — November 11. NEHEMIAH'S PRAYER. Nehemiah I:I-II. GOLDEN TEXT. Whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. I JOHN 3:22. THE TEACHER AND HIS CLASS. Two things may help to interest the class in this lesson. 1. Have one of the scholars be prepared beforehand to give a travel talk on the map, beginning with the town to which the school belongs, the other scholars following the journey with corrections and suggestions, and giving the modern names of the countries and cities. Go first to New York. By what routes, and through what counties would you reach Jerusalem? By what routes and through what lands would Hanani go to Shushan to confer with Nehemiah? Give the ancient and modern names, the rulers of the countries, and the methods of travel then and now. 2. Have the scholars repeat some of the many promises to prayer. LEARN BY HEART. V. 11; Matt. 7:7-11. Sardes lexandria Memphis Tanis = Sus, in Persia. One of the three capitals of the Persian Empire. Psalm 69 is parallel to some extent with the period of Nehemiah. THE ROUND TABLE. FOR RESEARCH AND DISCUSSION. Hanani and his company travelling from Jerusalem to Their report on the conditions at Jerusalem. Why did he delay so long before he asked permission? In what ways are our prayers answered? PLAN OF THE LESSON. SUBJECT: A Statesman's Prayer that he may be able to Help his Country. I. NEHEMIAH THE MAN FOR THE II. NEHEMIAH'S BROTHER HANANI RE PORTS THE CONDITION OF AFFAIRS THE TEACHER'S LIBRARY. Commentaries on Ezra and Nehemiah. J. R. Miller's Devotional Hours with the Bible, vol. 4. On Nehemiah, see Alexander Whyte's I. NEHEMIAH, THE MAN FOR THE TIMES, v. 1. Nehemiah was a descendant of the exiled Jews, but of the third or fourth generation; for at this time a young or middle-aged man, he was living 140 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, B.C. 586. His father's name was Hachaliah, the fact of his being named implying that he was of a family of some importance. It is implied in the narrative (Neh. I: 2; 2: 3) that he belonged to the tribe of Judah. Tradition declares him to have been of the royal house of David. He had a brother named Hanani, who had been to Jerusalem. From the statements made in Neh. 5- - for example, vs. 16-18 — it appears that he had large inherited wealth. His Birthplace. The birthplace of Nehemiah, probably, and the scene of his early life, almost certainly, was Susa (Shushan), one of the Persian capitals and a large city, as we learn from the extent of its ruins, where was a large Jewish community. His Early Life. "We must think of him as a very young man, hardly yet grown up, handsome, well-bred, a favorite, highly gifted, with a position at court, opportunity to make his way, and such examples of possible success before him as Daniel and Mordecai and Esther." Prof. Willis F. Beecher. He had every opportunity for the best education the Jewish people could give, in religion and morals and the Bible of that day, and a knowledge of the history of his country and all its institutions. His religion, as we soon see, was not the "religion of the low gear," no enthusiasm, no zeal, but one that kept him pure and true, and penetrated his whole life, and kept him close to his father's God, the one God of all the earth. Besides this training he came in contact with all the learning and culture of the Babylonian nation, the most cultured people of the age. His Character. "Nehemiah is a conspicuous instance of the right man in the right place. He was patriotic, courageous, God-fearing. He knew how to exercise the inflexible will of an autocrat, as well as to be persuasive when that would best accomplish the good end he had in view. . He was magnanimous in his generosity towards his subjects. Josephus says of him,' He was a man of good and righteous character, and very ambitious to make his own nation happy.' - Prof. L. W. Batten in Hastings' Bib. Dic. "He was a man of profound piety, connecting everything, great or small, with the will of God. His prudence was equally marked; and there is no better example of From an Assyrian tablet. Assyrian King and Cupbearer. constant dependence on God, united with practical forethought. He was disinterested and unselfish; his wealth was used for public ends, and there is not the slightest reference to self apart from the common good." Ellicott. 1. Nehemiah was a true patriot. "It is easy to be a patriot when it simply means shouting for a great, prosperous country." Soares. "A royal favorite, lodged in earthly paradises, he yet had Jerusalem written on his heart as the English queen said that 'Calais' was written on her heart." 2. He was a deeply religious man, a man of prayer and consecration, God-fearing, true to his convictions. 3. He showed remarkable wisdom and shrewdness, as we shall see later in several instances. 4. He was a man of great courage. 5. He was resourceful, ready for any emergency. 6. He was courteous in his manners. 66 and, worst of This is doubt 7. If any fault is recorded of Nehemiah, it is one which he himself reveals, a fault that for a long time prevented Alexander Whyte from loving him, all, I thought him a man who was always well pleased with himself." less an exaggerated inference. Max Müller, in his Autobiography, says that the story of a man, which leaves out his faults, is like a picture deficient in shadows, and fails to bring out the bright points of his character. "We want to know his faults- that is probably the most interesting part of him," certainly often very helpful. "There's a fleck of rust on a flawless blade On the armor of price there's one; There's a mole on the cheek of the lovely maid "But the blade of Damascus has succoured the weak, Goodness under Difficulties. A heathen court, with all its debaucheries and temptations, all its luxuries, and opportunities for injustice and oppression, with its intensely worldly atmosphere, would seem a hard place in which to rear the heavenly THE words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace, 2. That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. 3. And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. virtues. And yet if the man there is a victor, he grows strong by his conflict. In the seclusion of sick-room, in the solitary dwelling " far from the madding crowd," is found one type of sainthood, but another, perhaps better, is found in the marts of business, in the streets of traffic, in the press of household work. "When the fight begins within himself, A man's worth something. God stoops o'er his head, . the soul wakes And grows." Thus George Adam Smith speaks of the training of (the boy) Jesus at Nazareth: "The perfection of His purity and patience was achieved, not easily, as behind a wide fence which shut the world out, but amid rumor and scandal, with every provocation to unlawful curiosity and premature ambition." "The chief lesson which Nazareth teaches us is the possibility of a pure home and a spotless youth in the very face of the evil world." And the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, His Official Position as Cupbearer. When we first learn of him he was cupbearer to King Artaxerxes at the capital. The title " cupbearer " is misleading to us. It really implied that Nehemiah was a councillor, statesman, courtier, and favorite. It was not a political office, but one of great power and influence. The schoolboys who read Xenophon's Cyropedeia will have a good picture of Nehemiah. “The amusing episode of Cyrus and his grandfather's cupbearer is the best commentary we have on the position of Nehemiah." "Herodotus (III, 34) speaks of the office at the court of Cambyses, King of Persia, as an honor of no small account.'" cupbearers had a special privilege of admission to the august presence of their sovereign in his most private seclusion." "The II. NEHEMIAH'S BROTHER, HANANI, REPORTS THE CONDITION OF AFFAIRS AT JERUSALEM, vs. 1-3. Ezra's home was in Babylon, Nehemiah's in Shushan, 250 miles further east, with fewer persons of his own nationality, and farther away from news of what was going on in Jerusalem. It is this separation of homes that explains why there was so little working together of these two men, till both had been at Jerusalem. 1. The words of Nehemiah. This is apparently the title of the book, or of the records he made. In the month Chisleu. The ninth month = our NovemberDecember. In the twentieth year. B.C. 445. The twentieth year of Artaxerxes' reign included parts of two years. Compare Neh. 2: 1. The Meeting of the Brothers. Nehemiah was walking one day outside the walls of Shushan, so Josephus tell us, when “ some strangers, making for the city, travelworn as if by a long journey, were overheard by him discoursing in his own language, the Hebrew. Nothing touches the heart in a strange land more than one's mothertongue. He went up to them, therefore, and, introducing himself, found they were from Judah; and one was his own brother," Hanani. (Compare Neh. 7: 2: my brother Hanani.") Geikie. 66 66 Certain men of Judah (Am. R., men out of Judah,") who had just arrived with the latest news. I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped from being taken captive, and those who had escaped by returning from captivity, that is, those who were living in the land of Judea, as distinguished from those who still lived in the lands of their exile. And concerning Jerusalem. (3.) The people are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire, in order to deprive a walled city of its powers of resistance. 4. And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven, Josephus adds that "the neighboring nations did a great deal of mischief to the Jews, while in the daytime they overran the country, and pillaged it, and in the night did them mischief, insomuch that not a few were led away captive out of the country, and out of Jerusalem itself, and that the roads in the daytime were found full of dead men." The state of things does not refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586, one hundred and forty and more years before, for that story must have been familiar to Nehemiah. "The news is a great surprise to Nehemiah. The conditions require a recent calamity, not one of 150 years' standing. We are not left to conjecture, however, for we have exact information in Ezra 4 1-24, where there is a clear account of an attempt to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah knew of that expedition, and was anxiously awaiting news of the accomplishment of its supreme purpose. From Hanani and the company with him, Nehemiah learned of the disastrous failure of the expedition. It was natural that he should be surprised and depressed." - Int. Crit. Com. The Jews' Wailing Place. Thus the Jews at Jerusalem in our times wail beneath the walls of Jerusalem in these words: "For the Palace that lies waste, We sit in solitude and weep ! For the walls that are cast down, We sit in solitude and weep! For the mighty stones that are turned to dust, For our glory that has vanished away, Nehemiah's Prayer, vs. 4-II. The first thing, the absolutely necessary thing, for Nehemiah was to find divine help, wisdom, guidance, for himself, and the source of power over the king's mind. For this he prayed to the only Being who could answer his prayer, and he kept on praying for four months, while the double answer was being prepared, in himself that he, by deep thought, and new light and divine wisdom, might be fitted to receive the answer, and in the king that he might be inclined to do his part toward the answer. No one needs prayer more than those who are influencing their generation. "Falling with my weight of cares Upon the world's great altar-stairs That slope through darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, "For what am I? An infant crying in the night, 1. The Intense Desire for Object Hoped for, v. 4. "Nehemiah forgot himself so completely that he made the Jews' sufferings his own. He felt in his heart If I remember thee not; If I prefer not Jerusalem Above my chief joy." - Psa. 137: 5, 6. |