And what pledge, what security did these nobles require for their money?
The poor people had already lost their houses and their vineyards, there was nothing left to them but their children, and actually the son or the daughter was pledged or mortgaged to the rich money-lender.

If the heavy interest is not paid, at any moment the child may be seized, and carried off to the noble's house to be brought up as a slave.

'Nay,' cry some of the mothers in the crowd, 'our case is worst of all; some of our daughters have been taken as slaves already, and we have no power to redeem them.
Yet we love our children just as much as these rich people love theirs, they are just as dear to us as theirs are to them' (ver.

5).
'And then,' says Nehemiah,'when I had heard their cry and listened to their tale, I was very angry.' But surely it was wrong of Nehemiah to be angry.

Is not anger a bad thing?
Is it not one of the works of the devil, which we are bidden to lay aside?
Yet what says St.Paul?
'Be ye angry, and sin not.' So it is possible to be angry, and yet to be sinless.