Before we conclude this Fifth Period of our subject, we must take a brief review of the condition of our ancestors contemporary with the captives of Babylon; but who, under Ezra and Nehemiah, had returned to Jerusalem. The first captivity caused a complete revolution in the history of the Jews. Their very characteristics as a people, and as individuals, appeared to have undergone a change.

Adversity and captivity retained the Hebrews in that faith, and those forms, which, in their prosperity, they had neglected and despised. Men arose from their ranks, gifted with such power as to lead the multitude as with a silken thread—to sever even the strongest and most endearing ties, because such was the word of the Lord, such the law He had ordained. Marriages with the heathen were not alone again forbidden, but actually dissolved. The Sabbath-day, cleansed from the profane employments of buying and selling which had before desecrated it, commanded to be kept holy; an ordinance established amongst the priests, “to charge themselves yearly with a half shekel for the service of the house of God, for the shew-bread, and the continual meat-offering, and the burnt-offering of the sabbaths and the new moons, for the set feasts, and for the holy things, and for the sin-offerings, to make atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God;” a covenant, entered into under “ a curse and an oath, to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses, the servant of God; and to observe and to do all the commandments of the Lord our God, and His judgments and His statutes.”