ot a sign of one of them. We see instead an extraordinary
company of men, women and children making their way to the open space by
the water gate. They are covered with rough coarse sackcloth, a material
made of black goats' hair and used for making sacks. Every one of the
company is dressed in this rough material; not only so, but the robe of
each is made like a sack in shape, so that they look like a crowd of
moving sacks, and on their heads are sprinkled earth and dust and ashes.

The rejoicing has turned into mourning, the feast into a fast. A great
sense of sin has come over the people; they feel their need of
forgiveness, and they are come to seek it.

The meeting seems to have assembled about nine o'clock, the time of the
morning sacrifice. For a quarter of the day, for three hours, they read
the law of God, for three hours more they fell prostrate on the ground,
and confessed their sin. Their prayers were led by Levites, standing on
high scaffoldings where everyone could see them, where all could hear
them as they cried with a loud voice to God.

Then just at the time of the evening sacrifice, at three o'clock in the
afternoon, the Levites called to the kneeling multitude and bade them
rise, 'Stand up and bless the Lord your God for ever and ever: and
blessed be Thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and
praise.'

Then the Levites went through the history of God's wonderful goodness to
His people, to Abraham in Egypt, in the wilderness, in the land of
Canaan; everywhere, and at all times He had been good to them, again
and again He had delivered them. But they--what had they done?

'Thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly. Neither have our
kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers kept Thy law, nor
hearkened unto Thy commandments.... For they have not served Thee.'
Therefore, as a natural consequence and result, 'Behold, we are servants
this day.'

They would not serve God, they would not be His servants, so they had
been made to serve someone else; they had, as a punishment for their
sin, been made servants to the King of Persia. And what was the result?

'The land that Thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and
the good thereof, behold, we are servants in it. And it yieldeth much
increase unto the kings whom Thou hast set over us because of our sins.'

The amount of tribute paid by Judea to Persia is not known; but the
province of Syria, in which Judea was