impressive words: "Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation;
our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised Thee,
is burned up with fire; and all our pleasant places are laid
waste." Jerusalem was indeed "a heap of stones."

And who were they that should undertake to bring beauty, strength,
and order out of all this ruin and desolation? A small and
despised remnant of a once powerful people straggling back, as it
might seem, in handfuls, from their seventy years' captivity.

Follow Nehemiah in his lonely night-ride as he makes his solitary
circuit around the broken walls. Look at the scattered companies
of the re-builders as they set about their work; so separated from
each other, on that long line of ruined towers and bulwarks, that
a trumpet must be sounded to gather them together, should they be
attacked by enemies. Think of the sinking of heart with which the
first stone to be relaid must have been lifted; think of the scorn
with which they who hoped to see the failure of the forlorn
attempt must have looked on him who lifted it; and you can then
make real to yourselves the greatness of the undertaking and the
apparently hopeless inadequacy of the means at hand for its
accomplishment. No wonder that the enemies of Judah and Jerusalem
cried, "What do these feeble Jews?" No wonder that "Judah said,
The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed and there is
much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall." No
wonder that the provincial Jews--as they have been termed--sent
"ten times" to recall their brethren aiding those who were
laboring at Jerusalem, No wonder that Nehemiah "made his prayer
unto God," and said, "Hear, O our God, for we are despised!"