es and rulers. While the people were
absorbed in their patriotic service, these persons were planning
successfully to despoil them.

A cry of distress came to the ears of Nehemiah. The people found, now
that they had made the sacrifice and suffered deprivations and
cheerfully given their labors for the common good, they were deprived
of their blessings and enslaved.

This enslavement was not to foreign rulers, but to those of their own
blood. A division had grown up among their own kindred. Some had grown
rich and become their masters. Others were in hopeless poverty. The
distinctions came gradually or grew up among them, possibly
unobserved: the rich becoming richer and the poor poorer, until the
nobles held their lands and were selling their sons and daughters as
chattels.

This condition was hopeless, after all their struggles for nearly a
hundred years to re-establish their institutions. Neither they nor
their children could, under those conditions, enjoy the fruit of all
their efforts. This was no fault of theirs. There had been times of
dearth and harvest failure, when some with large families were in
need. The king's tribute, too, was heavy upon them and some were not
able to pay and they were compelled to borrow, but had to give
mortgages upon their land as security. Now lands, homes and all, had
passed to the creditors and they were despondent and helpless.

This cry caused Nehemiah great distress, but Nehemiah was not like
Ezra, a devout and learned priest, but without executive power, who in
a like position gave way to unmitigated grief. Nehemiah was equally
patriotic and conscientious, but he was also a strong leader and an
independent commander. He did not call together the nobles and rulers
charged with oppression and ask them what he should do. He had none of
their counsel. He took counsel with himself, his own conscience, his
own judgment, and worked out an independent, individual policy which
he should pursue.

His sympathy was with the suffering people, and he determined to
espouse their cause and to correct their wrongs. He then called the
nobles and rulers and charged them to their face with oppression. He
laid "the ax at the root of the tree" and charged the fault to their
covetousness, to the exacting of usury or interest. It was this, he
declared, that had brought them to wealth, but driven others to
poverty. He demanded reparation. When they were slow to yield, he
called a convocation of t