upon, that little remains for me to say. As we study the life of Jesus we find it to be something interposed from a foreign region into the midst of the age rather than something growing out of it. The burden of so many prophets, the desire of so many pious hearts in the past, is now realized. That great teacher of whom Moses was the type, and towards whom he toiled and struggled, has come. The human intellect, after wrestling with the subject for more than eighteen centuries, and after having received many promptings from malice and unbelief, has rendered a substantially unanimous verdict that the character and life of Jesus are perfect. It is absurd to contend that such a life was the natural product of the cold, dark, corrupt heart of the age of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. Indeed, I suppose that there are at the present day few persons who are both thoughtful and candid, that would defend the proposition that Jesus was a natural growth of his time. It was not until after the day of Pentecost that anybody of his time clearly understood him. With what a bewildered look Scribes, Pharisees, Roman centurions, and even his own disciples listened to the outpourings of his earnest heart. "These are hard sayings, who can hear them," was the honest exclamation of those even who had been most carefully instructed in the objects of his mission.

If we consider such a body of teaching as is found in the Sermon on the Mount, or in those four marvelous chapters in the Gospel of John-the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth and such a conversation as that with the woman at the well; and such parables as those of the Sower, the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Pharisee and the Pub-. lican, the Ten Virgins, and the Lost Sheep; and such texts as "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit," which perhaps contains the profoundest single thought in the literature of the world; and again that passage which teachest so profound and beautiful a lesson of trust, "Consider

the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these"; and that noble summary of obligation on which all the law and the prophets are said to hang; and that Jesus announces that he has come into the world to redeem men, to reconcile them to God, and to give them strength to embody his teaching in their lives; when we consider all this and much more, we shall see how utterly unconnected the higher doctrines of Jesus were with all the systems and institutions of the world into which he came. His teaching then was not a growth of his age, and hence was not of human origin.

We have arrived at one mark, then, by which the religion. of the Bible is forever separated from all human productions. Every human system is the natural result of tendencies existing in its own time. The religion of the Bible as revealed to us through its two great representatives--one of the Old Testament and the other of the New-is not the result of tendencies of its time, but of tendencies directly opposed to these. The religion of the Bible, then, is not a human production. (To be Concluded.)

ARTICLE II.

THE BUILDERS OF THE SECOND TEMPLE.

BY WALTER R. BETTERIDGE.

WITH the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the transportation of the élite of the nation, the doom of Israel seemed to be sealed. Humanly speaking, the hopes of Isaiah and of Ezekiel were apparently only the fancies of enthusiastic dreamers. The restoration of Judah was as little to be expected as the restoration of the ten northern tribes. But, in spite of these overwhelming improbabilities, such a restoration actually did take place, Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt, and a new Israel rose on the ruins of the old, differing in many respects from the old, it is true, but still its legitimate historical successor.

The history of this period confirms the opinion which would be naturally formed, that such a restoration must take place gradually, and could not be effected at one stroke. A century was required for its accomplishment. With regard to the course of events during this century, the records are for the most part silent, but the salient points are treated with unusual fullness. These salient points are, the rebuilding of the temple, and the establishment of its services; the building of the walls of Jerusalem; and the foundation of the Jewish church on the basis of the law of Moses. The second and third of these events stand close together in point of time, and connect themselves with the names of Nehemiah, Ezra, and probably the prophet Malachi, while the first occurred threequarters of a century earlier, and is connected with the names of Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Haggai, and Zechariah.

It has always been supposed, on the basis of what seems to be the clear statements of the records, that the great majority of the new community were either returned exiles or the descendants of the returned exiles, though it is stated that they were reinforced by others of those who had never been carried into captivity. But recently Professor Kosters, the successor of the late Professor Kuenen at Leiden, in an elaborate monograph has attempted to prove that the generally received opinion is incorrect in holding that a large band of exiles returned from Babylon to Jerusalem in the reign of Cyrus, and that it was these returned exiles who began the work of restoration and reconstruction. Kosters maintains. that there is no satisfactory evidence that any of the exiles returned from Babylon to Jerusalem in the reign of Cyrus; that the Jews still remaining in Palestine, inspired by their prophets, began the work of rebuilding the temple in the second year of Darius, and brought it to a successful issue in the sixth year of the same king; that not until after the rebuilding of the walls under Nehemiah did the exiles return in any considerable numbers to Judæa, as they did under the leadership of Ezra, and that this band of returned exiles had a share only in the final stage of the work, viz., the formation of the Jewish church. These revolutionary conclusions, Kosters maintains, are supported by an impartial estimate of the testimony of the documents themselves. The documents in question are the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

Opinions will naturally differ as to the nature of Professor Kosters' arguments and the value of his conclusions. Professor Cheyne, for example, in his latest work,3 says that the conclusions of Kosters in the main points appear so inevi

1 Ezra vi. 21.

"Het Herstel van Israel in het Perzische Tijdvak." Translated into German, "Die Wiederherstellung Israels in der persischen Periode.” 8 Introduction to the Book of Isaiah, Prolegomena, p. 35.

table that he has constantly presupposed them in dealing with chapters lvi.-lxvi. of the book of Isaiah. But it is difficult to see how the candid reader can fail to notice that, with all his ingenuity in marshaling his arguments, Professor Kosters manifests a constant tendency to overestimate those arguments which favor his theory, while he makes use of every opportunity to throw discredit on the statements of the so-called Chronicler, the probable compiler of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Therefore, without undertaking a formal review of his work, and confining my attention to only one part of his thesis, it is my purpose in this article to consider whether his arguments compel us to give up the idea, that the return of a band. of exiles from Babylon was the first step in the Jewish restoration.

THE HISTORY OF THIS PERIOD.

The historical records of this period are preserved for us in the first six chapters of the book of Ezra. According to this. narrative, Cyrus in the first year of his reign in Babylon issued a decree permitting those of the Jews then resident in Babylon, who desired to do so, to return to Jerusalem to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. In addition to this, he turned over to the leader of the returning exiles the vessels of the temple which had been carried away to Babylon by the victorious Nebuchadnezzar. According to Ezra i. 8, this leader was Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah. After their arrival in Jerusalem, the people, under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, set up the altar of burnt-offering, observed the feast of tabernacles, and resumed the regular daily sacrifices. At the same time they began the preparations for the building of the temple, the foundations of which were laid, in the second month of the second year of the return, with great solemnity, amid the mingled rejoicings and lamentations of the people. But the work so auspiciously begun was not destined to proceed without interruption. The surrounding peo