V.
Difficulties.

'So we laboured in the work: and half of them held the spears from the rising of the morning till the stars appeared.'-NEH. iv. 21.

THE last text was from this chapter, and was akin to the one just announced. I allude to the sixth verse: 'So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof: for the people had a mind to work.' Both the present text and the former refer to the same work; and in both the dial points to progress. Not, however, with equal steps has the work advanced. Of late it has been interrupted; a check has been put upon it. While in the former passage we are told of the raising of the wall to half its height, here we read, not that the other half has been completed, but that under the pressure of military necessity, half the workers have had to lay down the trowel and grasp instead the warlike spear. The topics to which on the present occasion we wish to call your attention are the following, and they cover, or nearly so, what yet remains to be considered of this chapter.

1. The conspiracy, of which mention is here made, and the measures adopted for foiling it.

2. Sundry coincident discouragements with which Nehemiah had to contend.

3. The heroism he exhibited and inspired.

I. Let us notice the conspiracy to which allusion is made in this chapter, and the measures adopted for foiling it.

'It

If Nehemiah dreamt that the work would go on without let or hindrance, or that he would have nothing more formidable to face in the way of opposition than insolent and contemptuous remarks, he was destined to a rude awakening. came to pass, that when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, and conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it.'

Mischief, you see, is brewing. This matter of rebuilding the wall now begins to wear a serious aspect. It is the occasion of a plot at once criminal and dangerous.

The criminality of the plot will appear if we call to mind the fact that the conspirators, 'with the exception, perhaps, of the Arabians,' were vassals of the Persian king equally with the Jews, and the further fact that Nehemiah held the king's warrant for carrying out the work.

As to the dangerous character of the conspiracy, this will be apparent if we remind you that it was a plot formed by several hostile tribes, two or three of which had an intense and hereditary hatred of Israel, and all of them a bad reputation. Their fierceness comes out in the words, 'and fight against Jerusalem.' We know by report, at least, and happily only by report in the case of most of us, something of the horrors of war; and in those days, and by the lawless or semi-savage tribes referred to, this proposal to fight against Jerusalem' meant dire slaughter, and brutal atrocities if it were carried into effect.

Conspiracy is a word of evil omen. The first conspirators were the angels that sinned,' 'the angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation,' whom God hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day.' With Satan as their leader they rose, as Milton puts it, 'in bold conspiracy against heaven's King,' and were overwhelmed with disaster.

Many a plot has been hatched, the origin or nature of which might be pretty clearly intimated by such terms as dark, infernal, diabolical, hellish. And not alone in the pages of secular history are such plots to be found. They are to be met with in Holy Writ. We might select one of the terms just used, and that, perhaps, not the mildest, to

characterize the conspiracy of which mention is made in this chapter. We might do the same as it respects other plots recorded in the Bible. In Gen. xxxvii. 18, we read: ' And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.' And who was the party here conspired against? The brother of the conspirators, their father's son ! Not a foreigner, not one from another tribe, but a member of the same family as themselves. And what had he done amiss that they plotted against him? His dreams had displeased and disturbed them. Behold this dreamer cometh.' And what is it they propose to do with him? It is to kill him: it is to slay their brother. In cold blood they propose to do this; a cruel, diabolical proposal truly. Some recognise in Joseph a type of Christ. Whether he be so or not, there are similar features in their respective histories. Jesus, like Joseph, was the object of a deadly conspiracy. 'Then assembled together the chief priests and the scribes and the elders of the people unto the palace of the high-priest, who was called Caiaphas. And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty and kill him.' Our Lord had mortally offended the several classes named, and they would fain wreak their vengeance on Him by craftily putting Him to death. With a view to this they take counsel together.

Conspiracies to annoy, to scatter, to destroy the followers of Christ are not altogether unknown in our own day.

What were the measures adopted for defeating the conspirators, and so foiling the plot here mentioned? They were as follows: 'Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night. because of them.'

Prayer and vigilance were the measures taken. 'The foe plotted; we,' says Nehemiah, 'prayed and watched.' The praying we believe, would be sincere and earnest; and the vigilance, we know, was of a sleepless character. Day and night the watch was kept. Religion would dictate prayer, and common-sense watchfulness, under the circumstances. It is well when religion and commonsense are thus united. It is not creditable to either that they should be divorced. Does St. Paul say, 'We are fools for Christ's sake'? Or, rather, we pass as such. He also says, 'Let no man think me foolish ;' and if the better to gain a hearing in a particular case he was willing to be accounted a fool, we must not forget his somewhat ironical use of the word, or of its compounds, on the occasion referred to. It is the same Apostle who exhorts us to 'walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise' (Eph. v. 15).

The Jews acted piously and discreetly in relation to the matter before us. We made our prayer