ruction of the people, its order of scribes devoted to
this new study, its synagogues or meeting-houses for oral teaching and for
prayer--now for the first time elevated into an act of public worship
co-ordinate in dignity with sacrifice.

True to its old instinct, Israel's religion, first seeking to build up
individual holiness, turned then to build up social righteousness. The
ideals of the great prophets, which had been long working in the minds and
hearts of the leaders of the people, were now embodied in the priestly
legislation. The traditional communal system of land-holding was
established as the legal basis for the new nation. The land of Israel was
nationalized, and its title vested in God, from whom individuals received
the right of limited usufruct. It could not be sold outright. No man could
gain a fee-simple proprietorship. The seventh year was continued as a year
of fallow when the poor were to have the right of pasturage and of such
growth as the land spontaneously brought forth. At the end of seven
sabbatical periods, in round numbers every fifty years, all purchases of
land were to lapse, and the soil return to the original possessors. At the
same time all debtors were to pass through a general act of bankruptcy and
go forth free men. Interest was not to be allowed on loans made between
brother Israelites. By these provisions both villeinage or land-serfdom
and the slavery of debtor classes to capital were to be prevented in the
new nation. This legislation of the restoration was "to the end that there
be no poor among you."[53]

To such impracticable ideals, for that age, did this exilic movement of
the new religion look, with sober, strenuous, systematic effort for their
realization; and therein may we see its intensity of moral life.

VI.

_The period of the Restoration, from_ B.C. 536.

The common notion is that this period of Israel's history was practically
a vacuum, and that through five centuries the nation experienced no
further development. In reality, it was an exceedingly active period,
characterized by most important developments. Politically it was a period
of constantly changing influences. Israel was scarcely ever really
independent during these centuries. Her changes were the changes from one
master to another. But this very subjection aided her intellectual
development, as she was thus brought under the direct action of foreign
ideas. Her rapid growth of population force