evitical
tribe to join the caravan which assembled on the banks of the river
Ahava, in Babylonia: and it was with some difficulty that Ezra at last
induced some of the priestly families to go with him. The whole caravan
was composed of one thousand seven hundred and fifty-four adult
males--making, with wives and children, about six thousand persons. As a
party thus composed had little military strength, and as the journey
across the desert was then, as it always has been, dangerous from the
Arab tribes by which it is infested, they felt considerable anxiety on
this account. But Ezra, from having said much to the king of the power
of God to protect and deliver those that trusted in him, felt
disinclined to apply for a guard of soldiers; and thought it better that
the party should, in a solemn act of fasting and prayer, cast themselves
upon the care of their God. Their confidence was rewarded by the perfect
safety with which their journey was accomplished. In four months they
arrived at Jerusalem.

While Ezra, with his sealed commission from Artaxerxes, was urging on
the noble work at Jerusalem, an unexpected danger to his people in
Babylon and its provinces arose--a sudden and fearful crisis in destiny.

Among the captives there was Esther, a Hebrew maiden. The Persian king,
to commemorate his victorious and prosperous reign, extending from Judea
to Ethiopia, and embracing a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, made a
magnificent feast, which continued six months. This was to display his
power and wealth, before the nobility of his realm, and representatives
from the conquered provinces of his spreading empire. At the expiration
of this brilliant entertainment, he gave the common people, without
distinction, a feast of seven days in the court of his palace. The rich
canopy and gorgeous curtains, with their fastenings--the tall columns,
the golden couches, and tesselated floors--are described as "white,
green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple
to silver rings, and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and
silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and black, and white marble."

[Illustration: Our Saviour Teaching in the Temple.]

Of this grandeur, in the ashes strewn by wasting ages, are imposing
remains. Modern travellers pause before "the vast, solitary, mutilated
columns of the magnificent colonnades," where youth and beauty graced
the harems of Persian monarchs.

Upon this occas