speople did not like this.
They did a good stroke of business on the Sabbath day, and would not
lose their large profits without a struggle. Accordingly, what do we
find them doing? They were refused admittance into the city, so they set
up their stalls outside the walls. If the Jerusalem people could not buy
of them, because of that strait-laced, narrow-minded Nehemiah, still
the country people who came in to attend the temple services could
purchase at their stalls on their way home. They might thus maintain a
certain amount of their Sabbath business, and secure at least a portion
of their Sabbath gains. Not only so, but surely many Jews from the city
itself, as they strolled through the gates on the day of rest, might
pass by their stalls, and, in the conveniently loose folds of their
robes, many, even of these inhabitants of Jerusalem, might conceal a
pomegranate, or a melon, a piece of fish, or a bunch of grapes, a
handful of figs, or a freshly-cut cucumber, and might easily escape
detection by Nehemiah's servants, standing at the gate.

Nehemiah, seeing this state of things, feels that once again strong
measures are required. He must make a clean sweep of these traders at
once. So, going out to them, he gives them warning that they will be
arrested and imprisoned the very next time that they come within sight
of the city on the Sabbath day.

'So the merchants and sellers of all kind of ware lodged without
Jerusalem once or twice. Then I testified unto them: Why lodge ye about
the wall? If ye do so again I will lay hands on you.'

That put a stop to it.

'From that time forth came they no more on the Sabbath.'

Then, from that day, Nehemiah held the Levites responsible for the
strict observance of this rule. His own servants had guarded the gates
in the first emergency, now he bids the Levites to take their place, and
to do all in their power to enforce and to maintain the sanctity of the
holy day.

Surely we need a Nehemiah now-a-days, we need some of his strong
measures to stop the growing disregard of the Sabbath, which is creeping
slowly but surely like a dark shadow over this country of ours. We need
a man who will not be afraid of being called strait-laced, or
narrow-minded, or peculiar, or Jewish, or Puritanical, but who will
speak his mind clearly and decidedly on such an all-important point,
and who will not hesitate to use strong measures to put down the
Sabbath-breaking and the utter disregard of