The reasons for believing that this roll was substantially identical with the book of Deuteronomy were already appreciated by Jerome, Chrysostom, Theodoret and others,' and a careful examination shows that the character of the reformation which followed agrees in all its essential features with the prescriptions and exhortations of that book.
For the impression which we get from Nehemiah's memoirs is that in his days the community at Jerusalem was in the main poverty-stricken, while Malachi's exhortations to the people to pay their dues to the priests implies that in the middle of the fifth century B.C. the Temple was by no means wealthy.
The effect of his exhortations, as well as of his personal character and public acts, upon the standards and spirit of official life in the United States, was a pronounced one in attracting to the federal service a group o men who took up their work of public office with the same spirit of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice that actuates the military volunteer in time of war.
Not even the exhortations of the popes could make her score of princes unite for mutual defence against the barbarians who en vironed them.
Old women were employed as go-betweens, and the marriage ceremony was conducted by a priest who after moral exhortations united the young couple by tying their garments together in a knot, after which they walked seven times round the fire, casting incense into it; after the performance of the marriage ceremony, the pair entered together on a four days' fast and penance before the marriage was completed..
