That lay field to field
Till there be no place,
That they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!

* * * * *

The Lord will enter into judgment
With the ancients of his people and the princes thereof:
For ye have eaten up the vineyard;
The spoil of the poor is in your houses.
What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces,
And grind the faces of the poor?
Saith the Lord God of hosts.[48]

One word, constantly recurring through the prophets, reveals the secret of
their enthusiasm. They lifted above the people the august and holy form of
Justice, and called on men to follow her. They appealed to a force in men
mightier than selfishness. They kindled the passion which had been always
latent in Israel, since the day when Moses led forth the slaves of Egypt
to found a nation of freemen. A new and lofty ideal mastered the minds of
the better natures among the people. Over against the darkness of their
age there rose a vision of a good time coming, when Justice should be
throned on law, and selfishness be exorcised from the hearts of men who
had learned the secret

Of joy in widest commonalty spread.

And this they did in the name of Jehovah. From Him they came with these
messages concerning social obligations. The Eternal One who loved
righteousness could be served in no other way than in furthering justice.
Religion became social reform, aflame with the enthusiasm of holy ideals;
of ideals seen to be eternal realities, as the shadows cast by The Living
God, moving on to accomplish the good pleasure of His will.

To conserve the new spirit of brotherhood which they awakened, they
embodied in the book of the Law, that constituted the Magna Charta of the
Reformation, a development of a gracious usage of the people. From
immemorial antiquity there had been a recognized right of the populace to
the natural yield of the soil in every seventh year. This common law they
formally re-enacted, in the name of Jehovah, and added to it a provision
for the release of debtors in the sabbatical year.[49]

We shall see in the nest period the fruitage of this new religion of
social righteousness, in the remarkable legislation of the Restoration.

In these serious, strenuous secularities--so often neglected by the
religious, or even opposed as irreligious--which now were consecrated to
the service of Jehovah, religion found its true sphere, and devel