od. He feels
that all the trouble that has come upon his nation has been richly
deserved, so he begins with a humble confession of sin.

'Let Thine ear now be attentive, and Thine eyes open, that Thou mayest
hear the prayer of Thy servant, which I pray before Thee now, day and
night, for the children of Israel Thy servants, and confess the sins of
the children of Israel, which we have sinned against Thee.' And then,
coming nearer home, he adds, 'both I and my father's house have sinned.'

Was it some special sin which he confessed before God then? Can his sin,
and the sin of his father's house, have been the refusing twelve years
ago to leave home and comforts behind them, and to return with Ezra to
Jerusalem?

Then Nehemiah pleads God's promises to His people in time past, and ends
by definitely stating his own special need and request (Neh. i. 8-11).

By day and by night Nehemiah prays, and nearly four months go by before
he does anything further.

The next step was not an easy one. He had determined to speak to the
great Persian monarch--to bring before him the desolate condition of
Jerusalem, and to ask for leave of absence from the court at Shushan, in
order that he might go to Jerusalem, and do all in his power to restore
it to something of its former grandeur.

It is not surprising that Nehemiah dreaded this next step. The Persian
kings had a great objection to being asked a favour. Xerxes, the husband
of Queen Esther, when on his way to Greece with his enormous army,
passed through Lydia in Asia Minor. Here he was feasted and entertained
by a rich man named Pythius, who also gave him a large sum of money for
the expense of the war, and furnished five sons for the army. After this
Pythius thought he might venture to ask a favour of the Persian monarch,
so he requested that his eldest son might be allowed to leave his
regiment, in order that he might stay at home to be the comfort and
support of his aged father. But, instead of granting this very natural
request, Xerxes was so much enraged at having been asked a favour, that
he commanded the eldest son to be killed and cut in two, and then caused
his entire army to file between the pieces of the body.

Artaxerxes, the king whom Nehemiah served, was considered one of the
gentlest of Persian monarchs, and yet even he was guilty of acts of
savage cruelty, of which we cannot read without a shudder. For example,
when he came to the throne, he found in the palace