1868.—Nehemiah and the Sabbath. Would you explain why Nehemiah expelled the sellers of wares from the city on the Sabbath as recorded in the thirteenth chapter? Were all those that sold living under his authority, or did he go beyond what he ought in the realm of religious liberty in threatening to punish them if they came back? C. Jerusalem was a holy city, set apart unto God. Its governors, its kings, its rulers, were there to execute the laws of God. It was not a city in which men made their laws. It was, so to speak, God's household, and all should keep the Sabbath just as every man should keep the Sabbath in his own house, and all within his care should at least outwardly observe it. That is all that Nehemiah asked of the men in Jerusalem; and it does not seem to us that he in anywise transcended the proper authority which God had given him. Perverted as the government of Israel had been, it was still in nature theocratic, and Nehemiah was still acting under God's orders, subject, of course, to all Nehemiah's imperfections.