The Book of Esther : its practical lessons and dramatic scenes

tihvavy of Che trheolo^ical ^tminavy

PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY

FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE

REVEREND CHARLES ROSENBURY ERDMAN
D.D., LL.D.

'S'

THE BOOK OF ESTHER

• ~ O 7

*-^^Jj|.AL Sti^^

THE

i

oofe of ^0t]b^r

ITS PRACTICAL LESSONS AND
DRAMATIC SCENES

BY

ALEXANDER RALEIGH, D.D.

KENSINGTON

EDINBURGH
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1880

PREFACE.

^HE Author of these Lectures has
chanced to see of late in some
secular prints which he respects,
a very disparaging estimate expressed of this
Book of Esther. Remembering that he had,
not long ago, spent the Sunday evenings of
more than two months, not unhappily to
himself, and, as he was assured at the time,
not without instruction and profit to his
people, in lecturing through this Book :
recollecting also that he had been asked
by not a few of them to put the Lectures
into print, partly for the sake of the interest-
ing history, and yet more for the worth of
the lessons drawn from it — he has been

vi PREFACE.

induced (and for other reasons as well which
need not be stated) to reconsider the case,
and to give now to the world, or rather to
that very small part of it which will concern
itself with the matter, this little volume,
which now no one is asking for, but which
the Author modestly hopes may not be un-
welcome to some who have had favour to his
writings, and possibly also to some beyond.
The Lectures are what is called " popular " —
one hopes in no inferior sense. Still, they
were written to be spoken, and not in the
writing of them intended to be read. The
style therefore is in a few places perhaps a
little affluent. But the Author has not
applied the pruning - knife, or sought to
change the style, for indeed, he means
nothing more, nor perhaps could he mean
anything greater, by the publication of this
little book, than a wider preaching.

CONTENTS.

Lectur

E

PAGE

I.

The Feast . . . .

I

II.

How THE Feast ended .

. 24

III.

The new Queen

- 48

IV.

Haman and Mordecai .

. 69

V.

Deepening Trouble

. 88

VI.

The Golden Sceptre

. 109

VII.

The Sleepless Night

. 134

VIII.

Esther's Second Banquet

• 155

IX. Esther going in to the King to

make request for her People. 180

X. Joy and Gladness, a Feast and a

Good Day 205

XI. Defence and Victory of the Jews 231

LECTURE I.

THE FEAST.

HIS Book of Esther stands in the
canon of Holy Scripture. But it
21 is no secret that its place there
has been challenged. Even Luther " ex-
pressed a wish that the Book of Esther was
not contained in the Bible." This wish of
the great Reformer was, no doubt, grounded
on those characteristics of the book, negative
and positive, which give it a uniqueness not
altogether pleasant.

'Tis said, for instance, that it reads like an
Oriental story or romance. 'Tis a tale for
the traveller's tent ; or for any listening even-
ing group, and by some mistake must have
found its way into the sacred record. But
it is difficult to see any force in this objec-
tion, since this is exactly what it professes to

2 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

be — a tale, an eastern tale, and full of eastern
imagery, as far at least as the facts of the
exterior history go. May not God write any
portion of human history, transpiring in any
part of the world, if He sees it needful to do
so for the instruction of mankind ? The
questions of real importance are such as
these : — How is the history written ? What
instructions are given in it } What lessons
are intended to be drawn by the readers ?

" True," say the objectors, " but there is
no sound instruction in the book at all. The
personages introduced are not great, are not
even good morally. The characters delineated
are all of a worldly type ; or, if the religious
tone is found in any of them, it is unusually
low, hardly recognisable as a religious tone at
all. An eastern despot putting out his per-
sonal will as the supreme law of a vast
empire, and at times turning all his power
and wealth into means for the gratification of
sensual appetites and wicked passions ! A
malignant prime minister who can plot the
destruction of a whole race who have done
no wrong, and whom he is bound to protect,
because 07ie of their number has refused to

THE FEAST. 3

do him honour ! A Jew without patriotism,
and without much conscience, or he would
not, of his own choice, be found sitting at the
gate of a heathen sovereign ! A fair woman
with surely no beauty of soul, or anything in
her nature highly sensitive, else she never
would have followed the advice given by her
wily relative, under no prompting of danger,
and solely with purposes of ambition ; — are
these the characters which God would be
likely to select and describe for the instruc-
tion of the world ? "

There is no force in this objection. It is
founded in radical mistake. It goes on the
supposition that all the characters delineated
on the sacred page must be saintly ; and that
all the historic scenes described in the Bible
must have direct and immediate bearing on
the fortunes of the kingdom of God ; and that
this must be made so plain that every one
shall be able to see it at a glance. Whereas
the fact is, that all through the Bible there is
a perfectly impartial and unselective delinea-
tion of human character, the good and the
evil intermixed in the picture as historic truth
requires, to say nothing of the circumstance

4 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

that some of the saints are not very saintly.
The most valuable lessons of wisdom, and
some of the most important moral inferences,
may be drawn from the darkest or from the
poorest scenes of human history. God being
judge, we need to know Cain as well as Abel,
Jezebel as well as Miriam, the bad kings as
much as the good. The loving broken-
hearted women and the scowling Pharisees
must be together at the very cross ! Granted
that in this book of Esther there is no clear
instance of human goodness of the higher
stamp ; not the less, as I hope we shall see,
may the design and the influence of the book
on the whole be good.

It is really but a small objection which has
been made to this book, that there is no men-
tion in It of the name of God ; and perhaps,
to this the quaint but not unwise reply of
Matthew Henry is enough, " that though tJie
name of God be not in It, His finger is." A
religious discourse may have little or no formal
mention of the name of Christ, and yet may
take hearer or reader very near the cross ;
while another which is full of the name may
yet be empty and vacant of its power.

THE FEAST. 5

The book is canonical because it forms
part of the Hebrew Scriptures, which all
Christians receive of the Jews, which our
Lord used or sanctioned every time He went
into a Jewish synagogue.

The author of the book is not known. It
takes its name from the Jewish female whose
fortunes are described, not, as we apprehend,
because they are intrinsically worthy of this
perpetual elevation and honour, but because
they are inseparably associated with the for-
tunes of ^the Jewish people, and, by their
means, with the history of the world. Esther
herself, however, is not the writer of the book ;
Mordecai perhaps ; or, a little more probably,
Ezra. It matters not. It would be pleasant
to know, but we are scarcely the poorer for
not knowing.

The time is about 480 years B.C. Under
the good Edict of Darius, the captive Jews
had returned to their own land. But they
had not all returned. Many of them were
content to stay in the country where they
were captives, and where most of them had
been born. But they are not forsaken or
forgotten of God. What a Providence is

6 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

over them this wonderful story makes known;
and the book is to be held in everlasting
remembrance, if only as showing to all ages
and to all peoples how much the Heavenly
care and love are concerned with those who
themselves have little or no care to keep
God's commandments. The Shepherd seeks
the sheep, watches over them in untended
fields, and throws around them unseen pro-
tections in the wilderness where they wander.

The Feast.

And now we may begin. " It came to pass
in the days of Ahasuerus " — Ahasuerus was an
official name of the Persian kings — " who
reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, over
an hundred and seven and twenty provinces,
— when he sat on the throne of his kingdom."
Historical research has made it certain that
this Ahasuerus is none other than the famous
Xerxes, the Persian monarch who makes
such a figure in Grecian history. This is he
who came in eastern pomp and magnificence,
and with his myriad numbers, into Greece,
intending to subdue and destroy it as a

THE FEAST. 7

nation by annexing it to his own dominions,
but who, as secular history informs us, suffered
complete and ignominious defeat at Salamis.
" He sat on the throne of his kingdom,
which was in Shushan the palace." Shushan
or Susa was the principal royal residence of
the Persian monarchs. It was situated on
the Choaspes, about 200 miles south-east of
Babylon. He sat on the throne, evidently
robed and in royal state, peoples and pro-
vinces in their representatives beholding the
glory and rendering homage. This habit
of royalty is highly characteristic of the
man. Herodotus and ^schylus tell us how
he sat on his royal throne, silver-footed,
and saw the world-famed martyrdom of
Leonidas and his brave three hundred Spar-
tans, and the indomitable courage of Them-
istocles and his Grecian armament at Salamis.
The issue of the conflict was immensely
and appallingly different from what he
had expected : and it is not too much to
say that the whole world and all the after
ages are debtor to those tremendous, death-
defying Greeks. Well, there he sat to see a
victory, and lo ! it was changed, as by celes-

8 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

tial powers, into an overwhelming defeat.
The affrighted monarch rushed from that
Athenian hill, and fled with his scattered
forces in dismay. But there he " sat," as he
" sits " here. It is the same man although
here is neither battle nor danger. He is in
the heart of his own kingdom and on the
height of his glory. All his princes and
servants are gathered. The nobles and
princes of the provinces are before him.

He has ordained a feast for them. But
the feast is really to his own power and pride,
for while they feast through all those long
days, he is " showing them the riches of his
glorious kingdom, and the honour of his
excellent majesty."

There is good reason to suppose that this
feast was held on the occasion of his pro-
jected invasion of Greece. To fill the minds
of his captains with confidence, and to fire
his soldiers with military ardour, he makes all
this vain display and provides this munifi-
cence of self-indulgence. If this be so, with
how little favourable result when the brunt of
the struggle came ! Yet what other result than
that which actually came could be reasonably

THE FEAST. 9

expected ? Real courage and endurance are
bred of much harder conditions than these.
How are real men made ? and how are they
made ready for any manly thing of more
than common difficulty ? By feasting on
rich viands ? By drinking wine and looking
on it when it is red in the cup ? By nights
of revelry .? By gazing on the outside shows
of life ? By sinking into voluptuous ease ?
Never since the world began have manhood
and courage sprung of such things as these,
although in a few rare instances they may
have passed through them unbroken and
not much defiled. The Greeks were com-
paratively few, and comparatively poor ; and
their country had no vast harvest-bearing
plains. They were fighting for rocks and
mountains and seas. But those mountains
and seas were the symbols and the guardians
of their liberty. It was for the defence
of that they fought. Every heart was
steeled with the high resolve that, Come
life, come death to them as individuals, the
last asylum of freedom should be defended,
the future home of freedom made secure.
Only in such a spirit could they have scat-

lo THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

tered and driven away like smoke these
Persian hosts.

And there can be no doubt that this great
law runs through the whole of human life
and history. It affects not only nations and
communities as such, but families and indivi-
duals. Those who are fed from the breasts
of abundance, cushioned on the lap of luxury,
feasted with shows of life, exhausted with
ceremonies, may get indeed by such means
easy, gliding manners, a politic and willowy
softness, convenient enough for life's ever-
shifting scenes and necessities. But they do
not get by such means an inward courage or
an outward strength for the harder, higher
duties, and the better possibilities of life.
No. Stress of difficulty, hard work, plain fare,
the touch of privation even, the wolf seen
from the window, if not quite at the door ;
these things make men, or, at least, have
much more to do with the making of men,
than their opposites.

The length of the feast is remarkable.
" An hundred and fourscore days." A feast
continuing for even three or four days would
be onerous and wearisome to any of us, or to

THE FEAST. ii

any modern monarch. The explanation
probably is that this was a festive time. "It
was the custom of the Persians to combine
great councils with great festivities." Ahas-
uerus had just won great victories in Egypt.
The Egyptian campaign was preceded by
solemn councils and muster of troops. The
Grecian campaign has a like beginning, al-
though, as we know, a very different ending.
But this accounts for the long stretch of time
which has been regarded by some as fabulous.
The time was really occupied in consultation.
The chiefs of the countries and provinces form-
ing the one great empire came into a council of
war. The story of the past would be narrated
to many a chief, to many a company. Objec-
tions and difficulties would be obviated. The
advantages of such an expedition would be
held out to encourage the spirits of any who
might be flagging and disposed to draw back.
At the very end of the time — during the
last seven days — this feast culminated, and
then overflowed into unbounded beneficence.
It became a feast to all, great and small, who
were in the capital. For seven days the
whole population was entertained with sump-

12 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

tuous and royal magnificence. Why dwell
on the splendour, the wonderful decorations,
the rich hangings of the pavilions, the silver
rings, the pillars of marble, the couches of gold
and silver resting upon a pavement of red,
and blue, and white, and black marble ?
Every guest treated like a very monarch,
privileged to drink royal wine in vessels of
gold, according to the state of the king, the
vessels being diverse one from another — that
is, never used more than once — replaced as
soon as they were emptied by vessels of other
form and pattern. It is a wonderful scene.
There is nothing morally great about it : there
never can be about mere feasting and splen-
dour. But neither, so far as we can see, is
there anything morally wrong in it, as these
things are judged among men. Neither
morally stimulating nor elevating intellect-
ually, it may yet perhaps be called one of the
artistic triumphs of the time — or even the
highest of them all.

Nothing morally great, we said, in the feast
itself, and yet here is a precept or rule for
the conduct of it, of quite unusual moral
worth, the principle of moderation. This

THE FEAST. 13

may be reckoned a sort of canon law of the
Persian feast. It is put out, indeed, only in
the negative form. There is no actual incul-
cation of the great virtue of moderation or
sobriety. But the law has, clearly, a leaning
that way. " The drinking was according to
the law. None did compel." The king had
expressly appointed "that they should do
according to every man's pleasure." Of
course there is the question whether, if some
man's " pleasure " should take him beyond the
bounds of temperance and propriety, any
restraint would be put upon him ? It seems
as if there would be. The enforcement of
that part of the rule, if it existed, was pro-
bably left with the " officers of the house."
The dangerous time was at the end of a feast,
as we shall see. Meantime, it is enough to
observe that there is to be no compulsion ;
the inebriating cup is not to be pressed on
the unwilling guest. That custom apparently
had been but too common among the Persians
and their imitators. It is not entirely, how-
ever, in moral recoil that sanction is thus
given in law to the better practice. There is
a touch of political prudence it it. For here

14 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

at the feast are princes from all parts, with
their retainers and tribes. There are men
here from the mountains who are famous for
their temperance and for the strictness and
simplicity of their manners. Such men
would not be won, but disgusted rather and
alienated from the royal cause, by anything
like Bacchanalian excess. In prudence,
therefore, as well as from, possibly, higher
motive, the principle of temperance must
have the reinforcement of public law.

It is humiliating to remember that no long
time has elapsed in this country since the
very same objectionable and repulsive habit
against which this public law of the Persians
was directed, prevailed in some of the social
circles of this country. It was a point of
hospitality to press the bottle even on the
unwilling guest. The generous host hardly
felt that he had done his duty until his
guests were reeling, and if some of them were
under the table the triumph of his beneficence
was complete. You might easily cull from
the poets of the last century, both of England
and Scotland, descriptions and allusions
pointing to a state of things which, happily

THE FEAST. 15

has now passed away. This, indeed, is our
reason for dwelling on such a subject —
repulsive enough in itself, — for even a few
moments. It is always helpful to observe
any signs of a real progress, and, undoubtedly,
in the course of a generation or two, we have
in this particular made very great progress.
Within the whole sphere of what is called
society, anything approaching compulsion
would not be tolerated, and in fact is never
attempted.

Whether we do not, on a wider scale, as a
people in fact, and with the force of law,
practise compulsion still, and that on the
weakest and most helpless part of our people,
is a very serious question, and one which, to
say the least, we cannot answer with the same
confidence. If places where drink is sold to
the common people are multiplied much be-
yond the reasonable needs of the community ;
if exceptional privileges are given to the
sellers ; if their houses, with many exits and
entrances, are planted in the most conspicuous
spots ; if they burn the brightest lights in the
streets, and are allowed to keep open long
after other trades and industries are closed

i6 .THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

and silent, does not all this and more of the
same kind amount to a sort of compulsion
to working -people, and trades -people, and
thoughtless young people of both sexes ?
If tJie spirit of that old Persian law were
expressed in our own legislation about drink,
it would, as we cannot help feeling, be all
the better for the morals and manners of
our time, for the sobriety of the working-
classes, and for the safety of the young.
" Men are not made virtuous by Act of Parlia-
ment " has grown to be a kind of axiom on
this and some other subjects ; and many a
one rides off on it, easily and gaily, as though
he had performed some feat in logic. But
the axiom is one which ought to be disputed.
It is not broadly and roundly true. Indeed
a part of it is untrue ; for Acts of Parliament,
when they are wise and suitable to the people
for whom they are framed, do help, instru-
mentally, to make men virtuous. So Acts of
Parliament, when they are unwise and evil,
help, instrumentally, to make men vicious.
When temptations and inducements to excess
are made too strong for the feeble resistance
they meet with, and made so partly by legis-

THE FEAST. 17

lation, is it not clear that the State herself
becomes a temptress, and to that extent does
" compel "? She makes the law under which
• — in whatever way the responsibility may be
shared — there are so many victims. She
gathers the tax which intemperance pays to
sustain her magnificence and power. She
must therefore have some corresponding
ability to promote goodness and morality in
their exterior forms. She can refuse to tempt ;
or to sanction temptation. She can keep the
path of virtue and obedience, as far as it is in
her care, open. In one word, as we have it
on the highest authority, she can be " the
minister of God " to men " for good."

So much we have thought it right to say
in contravention of the dictum of the let-
alone philosophy which is so much applied
to this and some kindred subjects. But we
cordially assent to the view that virtue and
goodness in the deeper sense are first of all
from above — from the Father of lights, from
the untempted, untempting God, all-generous,
ever-merciful — and then that in earthly form
they are the result and product of the free
action and mutual intercourse of human
C

1 8 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

minds. Let the moral and intellectual power
of the community, in its full force, come to
the rescue. Direct conflict with evil can only
take us a certain length even if it be success-
ful. The inculcation and the production of
goodness among our fellow-men will take us
at once into illimitable fields, and set us on
a pathway of progress unending. When we
have large increase of knowledge among the
people, some corresponding elevation of social
sentiment, and some refinement of taste, and
some improvement in the structure of houses,
and amusements which are not corrupting and
yet are really amusing — we may hope confi-
dently to see the same process taking place
among the masses of the people, in relation to
temperance, which has been accomplished so
largely among the higher classes. It is a
vast and various problem. It is a long ques-
tion. We can only do our own part by
adopting sound principles, and, still more, by
the uniform practice of moderation in all
things, because we are of those who believe
that "the Lord is at hand." Whether we
eat, therefore, or drink, or whatsoever we do,
let us do all to His glory — " using this world

THE FEAST. 19

as not abusing it," for the fashion of it
" passeth away."

How has the fashion of the world passed
away from that Persian capital ! the palaces !
the gardens ! the pavilions ! the tesselated
pavements ! the rich couches ! the golden
goblets ! the flowing banquet ! the gay
throngs ! the grand monarch ! the mustering
armies ? They have all gone like a dream.
The Persian people now are among the
poorest and most abject in the world. And
their country ? — will hardly support them.
So fades all exterior glory. So all visible
things do pass away. And England's grandeur
is but a part of the ever-vanishing procession,
the whole description of which is this — " the
world passeth away." But if we embody the
principle of moderation in our life, and
" walk by faith and not by sight," and take
the word and will of God as the light unto
our feet, and the lamp unto our path, for
solitude and company, for the funeral and
for the feast, then we surmount the poor
pageant in which, outwardly, we are moving
figures ; we cast anchor within the veil, lay up
treasure where it cannot be lost, live in the

20 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

life that cannot die, and with God and all
the good " abide for ever."

And now may we try to speak for a few
moments of that other feast of which we
often read in this same Bible, and at which,
even here, amid the changes and the shadows,
we may all sit down ? Where is it spread ?
" On this mountain." On what mountain ?
On no mountain in particular now. Jerusalem
has given her name to every mountain and
every hill ; wherever heights arise from plains,
or plains sink from heights : wherever suns
shine, or even only stars for half the year :
wherever waters run, wherever breezes blo^^',
is God's Jerusalem — His city of peace and
presence. On this mountain of His own
grace and manifestation, the Lord has " made
unto all people a feast of fat things " — the
richest blessings which He can give, or we
receive — forgiveness for sin, which else were
our ruin : converting and creating grace to
make all things new, to make the young
child-heart beat even in the old man's breast :
the spirit of adoption that will lift us up as
on dove's wings, towards the fatherliness of
God and the homeliness of heaven : God and

THE FEAST. 21

His love : Christ and His fulness : Promises
spread out like viands : protections standing
around us like walls and towers : prospects
stretching before us, away towards the infinite,
eternal — ever-blessed life — " a feast of fat
things" indeed, "of fat things full of marrow"
— not only the best in quality, but the best
of the best we may have if we will — a feast
rich and full with all the mercy and all the
munificence of God. But how shall we find
admission to the feast ? By coming. But can
we coniQ without an invitation ? Here is the
invitation as surely from God as the ten
commandments were, which were written with
His own finger, or as it would be if an angel
from heaven gave it at this moment into
your own hand : " Ho every one that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters." " Buy and eat."
Buy — not by giving something for something
else, something human for something divine,
but only by asking, by holding out the hand.
That, on our part, is the purchase-money.
Therefore the thing attained is said to be
" without money and without price." " Eat
ye that which is good." " Let your soul
delight itself in fatness " — the best of the

22 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

best. Sit down if you will under the King's
shadow and let His fruit be sweet unto your
taste. Let Him bring you to his banqueting-
house, where His banner over you will be
love.

Then life itself becomes in some measure a
banquet. The feast is continual — bread of
adversity sometimes given, waters of sorrow
sometimes wrung out, yet marvellouslychanged
and mingled with happier elements, and
made by divine blessing into living bread,
with which the soul is fed. The good con-
science makes the merry heart ; and " the
merry heart," the wise man tells us, " hath a
continual feast." Saith one with whose words
we close, — speaking of Him whose heart is
sincere and whose conscience is quiet — " Be
the air clear or cloudy, he enjoys a continual
serenity, and continually sits at that blessed
feast whereat the blessed angels are cooks
and butlers, as Luther hath it, and the three
persons in trinity, gladsome guests — all other
feasts to this are stark hunger. It is a full
feast : a lasting feast : not for a day as that
of Nabal : not for seven days as that of
Samson : no, nor of nine score days as that

THE FEAST. 23

of Ahasuerus, but a durable continual feast
without intermission of solace or interruption
of society " — and all this only a preparation
for the great Epiphany, when you shall feast
indeed.

LECTURE 11.

Chapter L, from verse x. to the end.
HOW THE FEAST ENDED.

ELL had it been for Ahasuerus if
he and his courtiers and tributary
princes had been as careful to
maintain personal sobriety as they were to
enforce the admirable law of liberty leaning
to moderation, which sufficiently protected
the soberly inclined among his guests. It is
but too evident that, as the great feast
culminated and drew to a close, the drinking
was deeper and the restraint less severe. At
any rate " the heart of the king was merry
with wine." The councils had prospered.
The great expedition was to go forward in
due time; and proud Greece to be vanquished,
and made subject to the mighty empire.

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 25

The feast has come to its last day. " Swell
high the song. Let the wine flow. Fill the
goblet to the brim, and quaff it to the honour
of the great monarch ! " If he himself drinks
deeply, although the law is still in force that
" none must compel " another to do so, there
will be plenty to follow the evil example.
For, let a king sit in a tavern, or wallow in
the mire — he will not lack even noble com-
panionship. No doubt on this occasion
many of the princes drank as their master
did ; and talked of their queens, and wives,
and concubines. In some way, in an evil
moment, the thought took possession of the
mind of Ahasuerus that the royal glory of
this supreme night would shine with its very
highest lustre, if he might call Vashti the
queen royal — the queen among all the queens,
for there was always one, not only first in the
monarch's heart, but first also in law, and
place, and dignity ; and Vashti is tJie queen-
supreme over all women. But it is not
because she is first in law that she is wanted
— as if to complete and grace some solemn
resolution of the government ; it is because
she is peerless in beauty — the very name

26 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

Vashti signifying " beautiful woinanr It is
not chiefly because she wears the crown-royal,
but rather because she outshines it — that she
is wanted by the monarch now. In the
simple but expressive phraseology of the
narrative, he wishes to " show the people and
the princes her beauty ; for she was fair to
look on." Is this thy love, O king ! to the
woman who of all women is dearest to thy
heart ! that thou wilt bring her forth from
chaste retirement, and set her as a show
before the rude gaze of drunken men ! Than
to persuade thee to this, the devil could do
thee no more devilish service. But it is done.
The evil thought has taken root. And the
word of command is spoken. The seven
chamberlains or eunuchs (whose very names
are written down — showing that the historian
is intimately acquainted with the particulars),
are commanded to bring the queen.

The queen — where is she ! Possibly
presiding still at her own feast of the women ;
or more probably gone to her own apartments
after it was over. On her startled ear fall
the few words of the king's command. But
who can describe the swift confusion of her

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 27

thoughts ? Surprise : anger : perhaps — who
knows ? one passing gleam of satisfaction,
food to her woman's vanity — that she
should be so desired — but soon chased away
by rising indignation, indignation in its turn
touched for a moment with the light of love,
and held in check by the spirit of obedience.
But there is no time for reflection. The
answer. The seven chamberlains wait. " Go,
tell the king that I will not come !" " Vashti
refused to come at the king's commandment."
What the reason was that swayed her to
this bold step, we are not told. Her motives
may have been mixed. Perhaps she was tired
with her own exertions. Perhaps she felt
that for the time she was not beautiful, and
would not look queenly. Perhaps she
thought the summons too peremptory, and
the bearers of it not dignified enough to
come to her with such a message. We
cannot certainly tell. All human motives
are more or less mixed, and so were hers —
but one feels bound to say that by far the
most probable cause of her refusal was a deep
sense of injury done to her womanhood,
and of course to her queenliness, in this sud-

28 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

den call to show herself in such a company,
at such a time. This is certainly the impres-
sion we get from the narrative ; and, suppos-
ing it correct, it raises the question much
more easily stated than answered — "Was
Vashti justified in this refusal to show her-
self at the king's commandment ? " We do
not get an answer to this question, when we
allow and even assert that the king was
utterly wrong in sending for her. Say that
in the hilarious excitement of the hour he
forgot his own dignity, and unwittingly did
foul scorn to one whom yet apparently he
sincerely loved. Was she, therefore, justified
in thus peremptorily setting at nought his
authority — and that before the princes, and be-
fore all the people.-^ For no more conspicuous
rebellion could be made ; no greater slight
could be offered to the throne or to the man.
Was it absolutely necessary to do this ?
Might not compliance have been better, on
the whole, and especially better in its moral
effects on the king himself.'* and on the
public sentiment as touching the laws of
married and domestic life ? The Bible gives
no hint of the proper answer : and we are

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 29

left to answer it according to our lights ; or,
rather, one fears it will be according to our
individual tastes, our predilections, our pre-
judices, our passions, our domestic habits.
They say " an Englishman's house is his
castle," and in it he is a little king. Here
and there, no doubt, might be found one
who is in the habit of demeaning himself in
monarchic style within the said castle, and
sending for Vashti quite imperiously, to receive
his commands and do his pleasure, when he
goes out and when he comes in. Well, Jie
will be ready enough with an answer. He
will hold that the queen in her divorce got
only her true deserts. It never would do to
allow woman to take into her own hands a
liberty of black rebellion. It would turn the
world upside down. Wives are to obey their
husbands, not resist them, far less rule them.
The wife is the weaker vessel, and should
trust to her husband's protection, not seek to
protect herself The wife is the angel, and
ought to stand where she is set, for admira-
tion, be it the public banquet or her own
fireside. " I am quite clear on the point,"
says this lord and master, this little Ahasu-

30 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

erus in his own realm, " no queen for my house
that will not submit and obey."

Then, on the other hand, if any one feels
that if his house be a castle his wife keeps
the key of it; and does so perhaps largely
with his own consent, because he is of an
easy mind, or of indolent habit, or because
he has an unaffected admiration of his wife's
genius and capacity and moral worth ; — why,
then, on the other hand, the answer of this
man also is a foregone conclusion. Thus
you see we are apt to answer a question like
this by our prepossessions and habits.

Now, as this subject affects the very chief
relations of human life, all married people
and all families, it may not be without use
to give here some brief consideration to the
fixed principles, both scriptural and natural,
which rule this question for all time. As
regards the scriptural teaching, we are per-
haps liable to think it in some points stronger
and clearer than it is. It is never in one
isolated text or passage that we shall find
the whole and harmonious truth on any
great subject. St. Paul, it is thought, has
settled or has declared for ever the relation

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 31

between the husband and the wife, and so
clearly that there never can be any hesitation
or uncertainty about it in the mind of a
believing reader of the Scriptures. The hus-
band commands, the wife obeys. " Wives,
submit yourselves unto your own husbands."
" As the Church is subject unto Christ, so let
the wives be to their own husbands in every-
thing." Could anything be clearer ? Yet is
it not the same St. Paul who says that in
Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek,
neither bond nor free, neitJiei' male 7ior female^
for all are one in Him } If it be said that we
must limit and confine this oneness to the
sphere in which it is alleged to exist, the
same surely ought to be said with regard to
the " subjections " of which the apostle treats
in his Epistles to the Ephesians and Colos-
sians. There is in some things a fundamental
equality between the sexes in the Christian
kingdom. There is in some things a funda-
mental difference which can only be expressed
by such words as subordination, subjection,
as applied to the woman. Both ideas must
be taken, and some others added to them
which we need not stay to specify, and the

32 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

whole must be duly considered before we can
expect lo get the full Christian teaching on
the subject. The Christian teaching was
hardly final, nor could be, in the Apostle
Paul's time. We have now no " slave "
servants, and we make insensible modifica-
tions— we cannot help it — in the applications
of the Apostolic language to the servants of
our own time. Woman's whole position is '
different from that in which she stood when
the Christian Epistles were written. She has
been elevated by Christianity, unspeakably,
and we almost feel it to be treason against
Christianity itself when the attempt is made
to smite her down again by the strong-handed
use of these New Testament texts.

Yet with all these allowances, and after
considering all the elements of the case, it is
clear, both from Scripture and in nature, that
the husband, in the domestic economy,
occupies the supreme position. The law of
subordination, however interpreted, leaves him
there. There is unity and equality in some
things. There is reciprocal obligation in all
things ; but still, out of these things, and
coloured and limited by them, there arises

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 33

the priority of the husband, the consequent
subjection, although limited, of the wife.
This is truly a divine appointment, but it is
not made in an arbitrary manner, like, for
instance, a positive institution of the Jews,
which might be this way or that way with
equal propriety — the thing deriving its sacred
character chiefly from the fact of the appoint-
ment. Even a divine appointment could not
make the wife supreme, human nature con-
tinuing what it is.

For one thing, woman is weaker than man
physically, and supremacy goes with strength.
All kinds of force have their ultimate source
in God, and when He makes man perma-
nently stronger than woman, no doubt He
means some corresponding authority to rest
where the permanent strength does. And
so the Scriptures say. No doubt strength
may be abused, is most shamefully abused in
some instances, by the husband. But the
way to prevent the abuse of strength is not,
surely, to attempt to transfer its proper re-
sponsibilities to weakness ^ Weakness may
be abused as much as strength, and in some
ways even more. There is a certain authority
D

34 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

that rests indefeasibly with the husband.
There is' a certain submission, or say com-
pliance, which nature as well as Scripture
requires of the wife. Shakespeare makes one
of his female characters — queen or princess
— say,

" Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth ;
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world ?
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts."

Again, there are many things of less or
more importance which come to require a
single ultimate decision. One must say how
this thing is to be. Of course, if there be
agreement on the matter, there can be no
difficulty. But say there is not agreement,
that the judgment of husband and wife are
diverse the one from the other : from no wil-
fulness on the part of either ; and connected
with no passion or temper of any kind or
degree. It is a simple honest difference of
opinion. Practical action mnst be taken one
way or other. Who shall decide t Is the
husband to submit to the wife t No one will
say so unless with reference to a few cases.

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 35

The utmost that would be contended for would
be some kind of joint-authority. But we are
supposing a case in which it does not work, and
cannot work. Neither is to blame. Neither
has any improper feeling towards the other ; a
joint-judgment cannot be reached, — and yet
action must be taken. How } would not every
true-minded woman feel in such a case — " I
am glad that my husband must decide } With
that decision, aided as it is by the knowledge
of my opinion, and after a full consideration
of it, I shall gladly fall in. After all there is
agreement — for that to me is in such a case
the will of God. He decides with whom God
has lodged the responsibility."

But the truth is that in a properly regu-
lated, or rather a properly inspired home, the
question of authority in its bald form never
arises. The husband's rule and the wife's
obedience are alike unconscious, and alike
easy. The sweet laws of nature, the good
laws of God, make them one.

But what about the homes that are 7ioi
properly regulated ? What about the author-
ity of the husband when it is stretched until
it becomes oppression, or — put in this con-

36 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

Crete case — what about the behaviour of
Vashti ? ■ Was she right or wrong ?

This leads us to say, on the other hand,
with equal emphasis, that the authority of the
husband is clearly a limited aiithority. Com-
mon sense ought to teach a man that there
is a large sphere of the practical family life
where he ought to leave the wife and mother
practically supreme. His interference at all
(whatever may be the abstract right) will
not help the industry, the order, the peace of
the household.

But, rising higher, look at the grand fact
that the authority of the husband over the
wife has, and must have, clear and strong,
and altogether impassable limits. She is a
complete human being. She has all the
moral responsibilities of any other human
creature — man or woman. She has her own
conscience ; her own will ; her own heart ;
her own soul. She stands in the grand
relations ; is under the unchallengeable and
unchangeable law of God ; is bound to render
obedience to Him against whatever opposition,
at whatever cost. The authority of the hus-
band, or any other human authority, is nothing

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 37

here. She may say as Peter and John did to
the Jewish rulers when they wished them to
render absolute submission and hold their
peace, — " Whether it be right in the sight of
God to hearken unto you more than unto
God judge ye." She will say it in such a
case as gently as it can be said, and so as to
gain her liberty of action, if it may be so,
without a struggle. But say it she must, and
will. Any one consciously untrue to God
and disobedient to the highest law cannot be
deeply true in the lower relations. In fact
it comes to this, that only the wife who
serves God in spirit can truly serve her hus-
band. A craven submission is not the loyal
loving obedience spoken of in the Scriptures.
Still there remains the point where the pinch
is, and the line where the shadow lies, and
where there is the flitting uncertainty. A true-
minded woman will be always duly disposed to
self-jealousy and self-interrogation. She will
say, " Am I qidte sure that God requires this
of me } Am I not gently smuggling in self-
will, and calling it will of God } Might I not
in this give up my own way, and follow my
husband's, and find it the way of God V Just

38 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

as a true-minded husband will say, "Am I
right in requiring this when I see that the
rendering of it costs my wife a struggle ?"
There are a hundred questions in practical
life which only love can answer ; a hundred
difficulties which only love can solve.

Then, was Vashti right or wrong in her
refusal to come at the king's commandment ?
You must just give your own answer, for we
have no authoritative teaching on the subject.
If you care to have our opinion, here it is : —
We think, or feel more than think, that she
was quite right, and highly to be praised.
The mandate did transgress the limit. It
was a mandate which neither husband nor
king had any right to issue. It touched her
purity, her womanhood, her intuitional queen-
liness, and she trampled it in the dust. The
act was brave in whatever spirit it was done.
If she did it with any view of the possible
consequence, and knowing that she might
thereby lose her crown, it was noble! Indeed
her mien and deportment, as she passes thus
swiftly across the stage before us, is queenly
and majestic. She is one of two illustrious
women celebrated in this book, and, to our

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 39

mind, she is rather the better of the two. We
know very little of the real inner character of
either of them ; but as far as we do know, or
may conjecture, Vashti is nobler than Esther.

The chamberlains hasten back to the king
in surprise and dismay, and give in the fateful
answer. Of course the great monarch, already
inflamed with wine, easily burns with rage.
Probably in the whole course of his reign no
slight like this has come to him. Think of
it. The banquet at its height of splendour !
The princes from far and near around him !
The whisper has gone round, " She is coming
— the peerless one with the crown royal
upon her head, and the highest beauty of the
earth upon her face." . . . Then, in a
moment, blackness is seen to gather on the
monarch's face, and the whisper goes round
yet faster, " She is not coming. She has re-
fused to come."

Of course the matter could not so end.
But the king's rage did not break out into any
wild and senseless ebullition. The refusal,
while it angered, seems also to have sobered
him. He never thought of using physical
force — as compelling the queen into confine-

40 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

ment. Our English King Henry would have
probably made shorter work with any English
queen in the like case. Ahasuerus at once
resolves that the matter shall be settled
according to the ancient laws of the Empire,
and with this end he avails himself of the
judgment of the wise men, the lawyers, and
the statesmen of his court. They were also
" princes " — those who, not only by rank, but
because of their proved wisdom and experi-
ence,— stood nearest to him — those "who
saw his face." The Persian and Median
monarchs lived in a privacy which was sacred
and inviolable. His great minister — charged
with the affairs of Empire — saw him ; but,
on ordinary occasions, few besides.

Of course in an emergency like this they
are earnestly consulted. And they are not
long in giving the answer. Apparently they
have no difficulty. They decide at once, and
Memucan, the leader — the Prince Prime
Minister — speaks for the rest, before the king
and the princes, and tells how they are all
agreed, not only that Vashti has done wrong
to the king, but to all the princes, and to all
the husbands in Persia. The recusant queen

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 41

had struck a blow which would be felt, and
might be repeated in every house in the land.
They seem to have been afraid of a social
insurrection. " The ladies of Persia and
Media," they say, " will all rebel against their
lords, and plead the queen's example !" And
perhaps the wise men were right. It would
not have been safe to pass such a matter over.
" Too much contempt and wrath," — contempt
in the women, and wrath in the men, — would
have been spread immediately through the
land. Ah ! but the king should have
thought of all this before ; as we should all
think more than we do, before we act. And,
especially where acts are doubtful, yet mtist
have long consequences. One wrong act
seldom or never stands alone — like a pillar
on a plain. It necessitates other wrong acts
to follow. The queen is right, and yet she
must be punished, because, more evil (in the
judgment of these men which we are in no
condition to contest), more evil would come
to the state and society by granting her
impunity than any that could come to her
personally by the possible hardship involved
in her sentence of deposition. That is the

42 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

sentence they pronounce, as far as they have
the power to do so — " Let her be deposed.
Let her see the king's face no more. Let
the crown pass to another : and the royal
estate — the palaces and the pageantry —
unto another that is better than she." And
the thing was done. The king was pleased.
The decree was passed in due and solemn
form. And it was published far and wide,
by letters sent into all the provinces, and
written in the several languages of the various
tribes and peoples, written out duly by the
scribes and linguists of their foreign office ;
and this was the substance of the decree : —
" That every man should bear rule in his own
house:" and this its object: — "That all the
wives should give to their husbands honour,
both to great and small."

The forecast thus made by these wise men
of the result throughout the great empire of
the publication of the decree, is probably on
the whole a correct one. Our phrase for
such a decree would be " statesmanlike."
And yet it is almost impossible to read the
terms of it without some rising of amused
feeling; without some emotion of scorn. All

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 43

the husbands are embraced in it ; and it pro-
vides that they are all to share alike. All
the wives too are included, for they are all
" to give honour to their husbands, both to
the great and small" Well, the great, the
really great, will get the honour easily, and
could do very well probably without the
helpful edict. Where there is real greatness,
which, in Christian speech, we may trans-
late into real goodness, it is the wife's joy to
render what it is the husband's pride to wear.
But the honour is to be given " both to the
great and small ! " " Ay, there's the rub."
If this insurrectionary torch should go
through the land, what will become of the
small ones 1 — the selfish, the spiteful, the
meddlesome, the rude, the mean, the silly,
the helpless, the good-for-nothing.? They
are all to have honour ! As if a decree could
really get it, or keep it for them. Wouldn't
the better plan be, in that case, and in many
a case besides, that the small shall try to
grow larger ? Let them be ashamed of their
littleness, and rise out of it into something
like nobleness. Let them love and help
their wives, and care for their children, and

44 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

think of others : and stir themselves up to
exertion and manly ways — and then the
honour will come as harvest follows sowing.
But unless they do something like that, one
fears that all the edicts that can be devised
and promulgated will leave them as it finds
them — " small."

So they parted. It was a literal and life-
long severance, accomplished, probably, not
without private sorrows and relentings each
towards the other ; perhaps not without sighs
and tears. The first verse of the next
chapter tells us that " the king remembered
Vashti," — it is a little touch of nature and
tenderness which makes us think more kindly
of the great monarch. And we may be sure
that Vashti remembered the king ! and
earnestly wished that things could have been
otherwise ; and blamed those rude and odious
princes, through whose means she would be
ready to think the thing had come about —
but so it was. They parted to meet no
more. It is an old story : and yet, alas !
ever new. It does not need king and queen
to make a touching tragedy like this. It
can be acted in very humble circumstances.

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 45

Hands joined at the marriage - altar are
pulled asunder. Hearts which have throbbed
to each other in mutual love and sympathy
are cooled and severed ; or, sadder yet, are
severed without being much cooled. The
drunkenness of a night, leading, it may be, to
something worse, or the fierce gust of passion
suddenly aroused, or some mood of dull un-
challenged selfishness, or some bitter, thought-
less words, or some headstrong ways on the
part of either, or both, and it is done, — kingly
honour sits no more on the husband's head
to the wife's view ; the crown-royal is worn
no longer by the wife, as the husband sees
her, and then they part, to meet no more.

' ' They parted, ne'er to meet again,
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining ;
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,

Like cliffs which had been rent asunder ;
A dreary sea now flows between,

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween.
The marks of that which once hath been."

Far other than this is the picture we are
to look at and realise for ourselves, standing

46 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

in one or other of the great relations compre-
hended in that word "home." There is a
divine wisdom given to men who seek it for
daily guidance through this ever-changing, and
sometimes very perplexing human life. Those
who in all their ways acknowledge God have
the fulfilment of His promise that " He will
direct their paths." There is a love which
can hold human hearts together, even when
all things seek to pull them apart — a love
which surrnounts reverses, which softens
hardship, which makes poverty not indeed
desirable, but endurable, which lives on
through the changes of a fickle world, and is
immortalised by death. As husbands and
wives, as parents and children, as brothers
and sisters, we have but to realise and
accomplish what is meant by that word
" Home ! " and we shall do well. True in
these relations,

Onward we have but to press,
Through the paths of duty ;

Virtue is true happiness,
Excellence true beauty.

Love is of celestial birth,

Make we then a heaven of earth.

HOW THE FEAST ENDED. 47

" Closer, closer, let us knit

Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside comforts sit

In the wildest weather.
O ! they wander wide who roam

For the joys of life from Home."

LECTURE III.

Chapter II., i. to xx.
THE NEW QUEEN.

FTER these things " — the things
narrated in the first chapter. It
must have been a considerable time
after. In the third year of his reign was the
great feast held which had such an unlooked-
for termination. And it was not until the
seventh year of his reign, at the end of the
year (v. i6), that the queenly throne was
filled by Vashti's successor. How is this
delay to be accounted for ? What was the
king doing .? Is it not very unlikely that one
so violent in his passions would wait so long ?
Those who believe that Ahasuerus is Xerxes
(which is, we think, the true supposition) can
account for those years fully, by the monarch's

THE NEW QUEEN. . 49

movements and by great historical events.
It is known that Xerxes was absent from
Persia in his fourth year. He passed the
winter of that year in Sardis. He set for-
ward thence in the spring of the year following.

The battle of Thermopylae was fought in
the summer, and that of Salamis in the
autumn ; and in the year after that, took
place the battles of Plataea and Mycale.
Then he returned to Sardis — and thence, in
a while, to Susa. Thus the four years are
pretty well accounted for. They were years
of disaster, and (perhaps somewhat in con-
sequence of this) of dissolute living. For
misfortune and reverse have the same kind
of effects upon monarchs that they have upon
other men. Some they humble and improve,
and some they exasperate and harden.

Yet this vanquished soldier, this disgraced
and dissolute man, is still monarch of Persia!
And the more he has failed abroad, the more
he must succeed at home, if he is to keep his
throne. " Let everything then," he seems to
have said, "go on in the full style of splendour.
Let no glory die — and the queen — I must
have a queen ! "

E

50 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

It is said the king's servants suggested
this to him. But kings' servants know pretty
well what to suggest. No doubt, however,
the policy of having another queen-royal had
the approbation of the wise men, else it could
not have been carried out successfully.

And then began the preparation, the
narrative of which needs no illustration of
ours. It is perfectly plain : and it is not
edifying. And yet it is. Rightly read — under
due emotions and reflections, it is edifying
(and especially to the female part of the
world), in the highest degree. That ought to
be edifying which shows much cause for
gratitude. Now just look at that picture of
Persian female life of the highest kind. Persia
— the mistress of civilisation at the time : the
seat of wealth and splendour : the land of
the brave and the wise. And this is how it
treats its noblest women ! Could female
degradation be more complete } All the more
complete that none wondered : none protested :
none resisted — unless we may take Vashti's
rebellion as a kind of moral insurrection
against the whole treatment and state of
woman. If it was so, it spent itself. For

THE NEW QUEEN. 51

here they come from far and near — the
young, the fair, the nobly-born — as well as
those of humbler condition in their miserable
darkness, thinking that an honour (without a
thought of wrong about it), which would now
be esteemed, in any Christian country, the
deepest disgrace. To use the words of an
English bishop on this chapter, " It is," he
says, " of priceless worth, as showing the need
under which the human race then lay, of
that deliverance which has been wrought by
the incarnation of the Son of God, the seed
of the woman, who raised womanhood to a
high and holy dignity, and by that spiritual
espousal of a church universal, by which he
has sanctified marriage, and made it a great
mystery. And it may remind the world of
the inestimable benefits it owes to Christi-
anity." Also, one ought to say, that the
narrative of this chapter, although we pass it
over lightly, is quite purely written. Now
this matter ought to be faced, plainly.
Sceptics and enemies of the faith are in the
habit of alleging or insinuating that there are
not a few passages in Holy Writ not fit to
be read in families and congregations —

52 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

hardly in closets. A considerable number of
passages certainly are not suitable for public
reading or exposition. Therefore they are
not read ; and they are not expounded,
except for some special ends. But impure
passages, indelicate corrupting passages }
Not one. The breath of God has passed
through this chapter, and it is clear and
clean, so that no one of simple mind will get
harm by reading it. Would any one say the
same regarding some of our fashionable
novels and tales t — many of them, softly be
it spoken, and sorrowfully, and with shame,
written by women ! ! — by women calling
themselves Christians, who, at any rate, have
received the benefit of the Christian civilisa-
tion so far, who therefore have been elevated
— away beyond heathen female life. And
this is the way they behave themselves, and
show their gratitude. They spend their
energies and their genius, such as it is, in
corrupting their fellow-creatures, filling the
minds of the young with evil suggestions,
which either distress them, or pollute and
deprave them : working up disgusting situa-
tions, and horrible scenes ; making light of

THE NEW QUEEN. 53

the holiest ties of human life, and apologising
for some of its deepest evils and crimes.

I am not speaking at random, although I do
not profess to be speaking from any extensive
personal knowledge ; because I for one will
not, and do not read such books, if I know it
— not as fearing any great personal harm, for
one may hope that one's disgust would always
be too great to make any harm possible ; but
it does one harm to be even disgusted unne-
cessarily. On reliable authority, by consensus
of judgment of the most impartial descrip-
tion, I believe this matter needs the attention
of good people far more urgently than some
other things which secure that attention. At
any rate, I feel quite sure that I am but doing
my duty in thus testifying and warning. One
thing we can all do, we can refuse to read.
Happily there is enough good literature of
every kind — not heavy, dull, solemn, but
fresh, bright, humorous, pathetic, comic, tragic
— all kinds of the really good, by writers both
alive and dead. So that there is no excuse
for going down into the slough ; " Keep thyself
pure."

But it is time to go on with our story.

54 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

New characters now come on the stage ;
especially the two principal characters of the
book, and we may almost say of the genera-
tion in which they lived — Mordecai and
Esther. Neither of them of any note at the
time they begin to act, but. both of them, as
the sequel shows, highly capable of making
history, and acting worthily in the most con-
spicuous situations. In fact, the character of
both the one and the other is quite a study.
They are colourless people when we first see
them ; and although they become more pro-
nounced as the drama unfolds itself, they
never stand out, morally and religiously,
among the best. There is material in the
narrative for forming a very favourable judg-
ment of both of them ; and there is also some
material for forming almost an adverse judg-
ment. The conclusion one comes to is, that
we had better not confidently judge them
either the one way or the other, although
there is, I think, enough to justify a highly
favourable judgment, but regard them as
chosen actors and instruments in the hands of
Providence in a critical time, rather than as pre-
pared and sanctified specimens of goodness.

THE NEW QUEEN. 55

Mordecai is introduced to us as " a certain
Jew'' living in Shushan the Palace. Any one
having prepossession against Mordecai can
say — " What was he doing there at all ? A
man of energy and capacity, why had he not
returned to Jerusalem with those, or after
them, who had been set free ? Patriotism
would have carried him to Palestine : con-
demns him living still in Persia." But this is
to take a very narrow view of the case. Re-
member it was this man's grandfather or great-
grandfather who had been carried captive into
Babylon. He had been born in the captivity,
and brought up among the people and amid
the customs of the place ; and he may have
seen (there is some reason for supposing that
he did) that the best service he could render
to his people and country could be rendered
in Shushan and not in Jerusalem.

In the house with him is a Jewish girl,
Hadassah, really a cousin of his own, for she
was his uncle's daughter, but so much younger
than himself that he has adopted her as a
daughter, and is bringing her up in the nurture
and admonition of his people. Father and
mother both gone — what a loss ! Poor little

56 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

orphan girl ! The world will be hard and cold
to her now. But she would be told of one
who is "the Father of the fatherless;" and
surely never any one had more occasion to
say, " When my father and mother forsake
me, then the Lord will take me up."

And yet also do not you see in Esther
something which almost tells of the lack of a
mother's tenderness and care in her earliest
years ; a certain clear, passionless, almost
masculine strength of purpose, but not soft-
ened with any flushing of emotion. However,
she is now a girl in her loving protector's
house ; she is his child. He is evidently a
man of high capacity, fit for affairs of state
as soon as they come into his hands, and she
is, of course, educated in the best manner.
She never could have been Queen of Persia
without high accomplishments. She was also
" fair and beautiful," or ''fair of form mid
good of countenanced Evidently she possessed
unusual beauty. Her Hebrew maiden name
was Hadassah — myrtle ; her Persian queenly
name was Esther — star.

One of the great difficulties of the Book
is the difficulty of understanding how

THE NEW QUEEN. 57

Mordecai could think of entering his ward,
his adopted child, on such a competition at all.
There was no difficulty to any Persian family
— they were but falling in with the ancient
custom. Political movements were often ad-
vanced in connection with these royal
alliances, just as they are at this day in all
the European countries, although now in a
less degree than formerly. But Mordecai is
a Jew — a strict Jew in many things, a real
lover of his country and people ; and it is
matter of wonder that he can venture a
Jewish maiden, one to whom he is tenderly
attached — his very child of adoption, into
such a sea of dread uncertainty. Some think
that he must have had divine intimation
either expressly communicated, or rising
strongly in his own convictions as to the
issue of the trial. When the parents of
Moses " saw that he was a proper child they
hid him three months." Something, as it
were, told them instinctively that this child
was to be the deliverer of his people. In
like manner Mordecai may have had it im-
pressed upon his mind irresistibly that this
child (as dear as she was fair) would be the

58 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

instrument for great benefits to her people.
But this is simply a kindly conjecture, and
there really is no historical foundation for it.
We are always in danger of regarding a
course of human action in the light of its
results. If those results are highly favour-
able, and if the divine hand has been con-
spicuously displayed in bringing them about,
the means employed to bring them are apt
to pass with much less than the usual criti-
cism. Indeed, it is apt to seem almost like
a presumptuous human judgment on divine
providence itself if we venture to say " This
and this was wrong " ! " Wrong ? how can it
be, when God has deigned to use it as his
own instrumentality for working his holy and
perfect will ?'' So we mingle and confuse
things which are perfectly and for ever apart.
The moral merit, or demerit, of what I do
is one thing. God's use of what I do, and
his applications of it to the promotion of his
own good ends — that is quite another thing.
What we do is right or wrong in itself, — or
it is partly right and partly wrong, — and it is
for the moral character of the action that we
are answerable. The consequences (owing, it

THE NEW QUEEN. 59

may be, to a great many other things) may be
disastrous — we are not responsible for that,
or (owing again to a great many other things)
they may be most excellent — we have no
merit in that. The merit and demerit lie in
the action, not in any concomitants or con-
sequents.

The same principle is to be applied in
our judgments of the conduct of others, — in
so far as we judge them. We are not to
judge our neighbours in an evil uncharitable
sense. But we are to judge our neighbours
in a broad, and candid, and fair manner.
Still more ought we to make fair judgment
regarding our predecessors, whose names and
deeds are on the page of history. Their lives
will be of little use to us unless we do.

It is particularly necessary to judge the
Scripture characters of all kinds, and the par-
ticular acts of the men and women in them-
selves co7isidered^ and not merely in the light
of their historic effects. We are not to ask
regarding any one — Mordecai or Esther, or
any one else, " Is this man, this woman, a
saint or a sinner } and then explain every-
thing in the light of the answer we get, or

6o THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

give. Rather, we are to take the actions, one
by one, or the course of action, and in the
light of the great moral principles of the
Scriptures, which never change, which are as
inflexible as the divine nature itself, we are
humbly to form and express our estimates —
" This is wrong, no matter what comes of it !
This is right, no matter what comes of it !"

Well, judged in this way, what are we to
say regarding the conduct of Mordecai, in
sending his child into this great national
competition for a jaded monarch's heart — or
rather for the supreme place and power in
the kingdom next to that of the monarch .?
No doubt there are many things to be taken
into account, some of them perhaps quite un-
known to us. But we confess we do not see
how he could be justified in any view of the
case that can be taken. He was a Jew, and
well instructed. He had, i.e. he knew, the pure
religion — the pure morals. He knew what
was right and the will of God ; and he ought
not to have sent that girl — young, fair, artless,
and, as far as appears through the whole
history, perfectly simple and pure — up into
the king's Harem to take the chances. It

THE NEW QUEEN. 6i

was a success — but suppose it had been a
failure ? Then he has sacrificed the child.
He has lost her even for himself, and with
her the objects of his ambition or of his
patriotism.

Just stick risks are run, although of course
not amid circumstances so conspicuous and
splendid, by those who promote alliances for
their children with supreme or exclusive
regard to wealth, station, and other outward
things. If moral character be not regarded,
be not required in the man sought or accepted
for a husband to the child or the ward — if it
be chiefly what he has, and where he stands
in the social scale — well, the marriage may
turn out happily enough, for men are often
better than they are known to be until they
are tried ; but sometimes also they are worse,
and then ? — yes, sometimes greatly worse, and
then ? — the married life is a ghastly awaken-
ing, a long-drawn and still-increasing pain.
The man's love was but a whim. It is soon
over. He is selfish, slippery, carnal, untrue.
He seeks enjoyment chiefly in the satisfaction
of his passions. He tramples roughly on the
tenderest affections. And there are tears

62 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

shed in secret by her who trusted and has
been thus grievously disappointed. And
touches of pain may be seen on her counte-
nance ; and her secret life is a sigh. Can any
outward advantages compensate for this } and
when this comes, as it does sometimes, to-
gether with a complete collapse of those very
advantages — the misery is complete.

" Mordecai walked every day before the
court of the women's house, to know how
Esther did, and what should become of her."
And it is probable that on some particular
days his reflections were not very enviable.
Ah ! how many a house has been thus watched
since then ? How many are watched now t
by those who, in heart, and sometimes even
literally, like Mordecai, walk up and down,
waiting to hear some tidings of the caged
and suffering creature within.

OiLv Esthers take the matter of their own
life-alliance more into their own hands, as it
is right they should. To tJieni, therefore, as
well as to the Mordecais — the fathers, the
mothers, the uncles, the guardians, — this
warning word should come. Seek first to
find the true and loving heart in him, in her.

THE NEW QUEEN. 63

to whom you give your hand. Seek first a
companionship that will be helpful and
ennobling to you whatever the outward
fortunes may be, and all other things will be
added. After all we must trust each other
in a large measure. We cannot know every-
thing beforehand. Young people cannot
know each other. They do not know even
themselves. They do not know, therefore,
what kind of husbands and wives they will
make to each other. Go on cheerfully then
on probabilities. But let them be probabili-
ties looking the right way, not the wrong
way, and then be hopeful of all good. So it
be the true Esther, whether she be on the
throne, or in the little house of the quiet
street, doesn't so much matter. There is a
" star "-like beauty which will shine above all
outward splendours, and which no obscurity
can quench. It is " the beauty of the Lord
our God upon " his faithful people, and those
who shine in it are Daniels and Esthers
wherever they may be. (And if not married,
never mind.)

Well — we all know the issue of the trial.
The monarch declares himself captivated —

64 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

really is so, for he had no motive to say any-
thing but the truth in the case, with the
charms of the Jewish maiden (not knowing
her to be so as yet). Now this means, we
cannot help thinking, far more than we
usually comprehend in the term " beauty."
It means a high order of accomplishment in
Esther. As the monarch thought, and as
the sequel proved, she was every inch a
queen.

In due time she is so proclaimed. And
the feast is held, without which nothing grand
can be accomplished — modern London is like
ancient Persia in this. It was Esthers feast ;
and it was great. There was release in the
provinces, and bountiful giving, and universal
joy. And Mordecai walks no more in the
court, waiting for tidings with an anxious
heart. And his faith is rewarded, if what he
did was done in faith. And in any case his
political views are advanced, and he is one
step — one great step, nearer the position
where he will be able to protect his people
from some terrible storms that seem gather-
ing. And, above all, the providence of God
is seen in the very process of one of its most

THE NEW QUEEN. 65

wonderful achievements ; and seen, not the
less illustriously, because there is so much
that may be exceptionable in the human
action of the individuals concerned. We do
not need to justify Mordecai in everything ;
or Esther in everything ; or, still more, the
king in his universal lawlessness, in order to
see the working of a perfect providence in all.
The individual agents do their will, and
take their way as they can — some striving for
this, and some for that — and the will and the
way of God come out of them serenely, per-
fectly ! But do not you see what a wonderful
chain of events it is, out of which the ultimate
providential purpose is evolved, and how a fail-
ure or a change anywhere — in what we call a
little thing — would alter the whole effect ?
Say that the feast had been interrupted, even
on its last day, before the king's heart was
merry with wine — nothing would then have
happened of all this history. Say that the
vain thought of exhibiting his queen had
never entered into his mind — nothing would
have happened. Say that Vashti had come
when she was sent for — again nothing would
have happened. Say that Esther's father and
F

66 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

mother had not died — she would have been
at home with them, and they would not have
thought of doing as Mordecai did. And so
on through a great number of possible sup-
positions. A link dropped in a chain spoils
the chain. It will pull nothing, hold nothing.
Any one event of a long series dropped out
would alter all that comes after. God's
providence, therefore, is minute and particular.
It concerns all that happens — all that men
think, and do, and are. Human freedom is
untouched, and yet divine will is perfectly
wrought ; and if only we are on the side of
that divine will as far as we know it, sub-
mitting and conforming our own will to the
will of God, then we may be entirely sure
that providence is on our side. The smallest
things in our life are the objects of divine re-
gard. The hairs of our head are all numbered,
our tears are kept by God as men keep the
choicest wines, our sighs are heard, our steps
directed, our " goings out " and our " comings
in " preserved from that time forth, when we
give ourselves truly to Him, on through life
to its ending, and even for evermore.

If, on the other hand, we are governed by

THE NEW QUEEN. 67

self-will, having no respect for the will of God,
except in so far as it may seem to chime in
with our own, we may be as entirely sure that
providence is against us — at any rate, can
never be " for us" — while we continue in such
a state of mind. It might set a crown upon
our head, put a kingdom into our hands, lay
our name on the four winds, to be borne
wherever breezes whisper or waters murmur
in human ears, yet all the while in its secret
spirit, and in the full weight of its eternal
force, it would be against us. And if we die
in that state, settled in self-will, what will
happen ? Just this : the providence of the
world into which we go will be against us,
exactly as was the providence of this world
when we left it ; and if a man could die, or
fly if you will, out of one world into another,
and then into another continually and eter-
nally, he would never find a world the provi-
dence of which would be for him, unless there
be another God. Everything, then, you see
depends on having the humble, obedient, holy
will. Our inner state will rule for us all outer
things. "He that doeth the will of God
abideth for ever."

68 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

True,' it is a very great matter; indeed it is
everything to get this renewed will. And to
some it may seem impossible. " We are what
we are, and such we must remain ; we can only
develop, we cannot change." But the gospel
says, " No ; there is no such necessity. With
God all things are possible. The gospel is
forgiveness ; the gospel is regeneracy ; the
gospel is power ; the gospel is the breath of
God in the soul of man. As on some trees
the leaves hang long — through the autumn,
through the dark, dripping winter, sear and
sapless and sooty, and yet will not fall off
and die, although shaken by many a blast,
but fall off quite easily on some early spring
day when not a breath is stirring without,
because the irresistible force of new life is
stirring within — so when a man is in Christ
he is a new creature, and when he is a new
creature old things naturally and easily pass
away, and all things become new." *

LECTURE IV.

Chapter III.

HAMAN AND MORDECAI.

ORDECAI is " sitting in the king's

-'Iw '^ gate." Some call him a humble
il li^H I porter, or gate-opener, getting thus
the effect of contrast between the humble posi-
tion and the great service he was able to
render in a particular case in protecting and
preserving the monarch. But this is a mis-
take. To stand or sit in the gate was to be
near the person of the king, and to be high
in office. No position is contemptible in
itself But a man of Mordecai's gifts and
capacities was not likely to be found in the
lowest kind of service ; he is in the king's
s^ate, and of course in official association with

70 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

many more — chamberlains and ministers of
state.

Some way or other, we are not told how,
he becomes aware of the existence of a trea-
sonable plot against the king's life. He may
have been consulted by the traitors ; or hints
may have been dropped in his hearing to see
if he would take them up ; or, without becom-
ing an eavesdropper, he may have overheard
some whisperings of evil omen ; or, suspecting
something amiss, he may have become an
eavesdropper. Some way or other, "the
thing became known" to him ; and he lost no
time in making it known to the king, through
Esther, the queen. The thing was soon fully
discovered and laid open, and the conspira-
tors— Bigthana and Teresh — were "hanged
on a tree" {ix. crucified), and the thing was
written in the Book of the Chronicles before
the king. A true picture of Persian court-
life ! If any one asks farther proof of the
probability of such a thing, it is at hand in
the unquestioned historic fact that Xerxes
" was actually murdered, at night in his bed,
by two persons, one of whom was a chamber-
lain and the other a chief captain of his

HAMAN AND MORDECAL 71

guard." The thing was of frequent occur-
rence in Persian history ; indeed we may say
that this kind of thing has been a constant
and ghastly attendant on despotic rule in
every country. When any one is endowed
with irresponsible power ; when the lives of
others are in his hands ; when all things and
all persons, great and small, are made to bend
to his convenience and contribute to his glory ;
when he withholds his heart from no joy, he
is not the happier, and certainly he is not the
safer by all this, but only by so much the
more exposed. Some request denied, some
courtier's mortified ambition, or some ill-
regulated impulse of true patriotism ; or some
brooding injury that has come of the monarch's
lawless indulgence ; or some capricious mood
of which no account could be given — any of
these things, or things less still than these,
can shape the arrow or sharpen the sword
that will drink the heart's blood of a king.

The same law runs through universal life.
High station, anywhere in the social scale,
does not of itself bring either contentment or
safety. The sleepless pillow is seldom the
hardest ; is often the downiest. The house

72 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

that has most of "home" in it, in the deepest
and dearest sense of the word, is seldom the
house with the greatest number of rooms in
it : is far more often the house where a Httle
pressure is now and then needed, and always
a good deal of motherly and sisterly skill in
getting everything into daily fettle and trim.
In lowliness is safety. Labour, unless it be
over-work, sweetens pleasure. The old lesson
meets us at every turn — "Neither poverty
nor riches." If we were poor, we should be
sure to steal, if not with our fingers, with our
thoughts — with our hunger, our envy, our
hankering cares ; and if we were rich, God
knows ! we might forget Him, and go strut-
ting about as masters when, in fact, we are
only tenants and hired servants, holding our
life-farm by the day. We who are of the
middle ranks ought to be, as far as our con-
dition is concerned, among the safest and
happiest of mankind. If there be truth in
this book, and if we are not mere pretenders
to faith in it, then "the lines have fallen unto
us in pleasant places, and we have a goodly
heritage."

But now there comes suddenly upon the

HAMAN AND MORDECAI. 73

stage, like a Macbeth or a Richard the Third,
one of the great characters of this book,
Haman. The name is supposed to signify
The Illustrious. Famous he has certainly
made himself through all time. His name
and deeds will live as long as those of Esther.
He was an Agagite, a descendant of the
Amalekite kings. Amalek laid wait for Israel
when he came up out of Egypt, and fought
against him in Rephidim. His cruelty was
gratuitous and malicious in a high degree ;
and for great moral and public reasons it was
never to be forgiven. Amalek was to be de-
stroyed. Saul had the opportunity of doing
it, failed to do it, and lost his crown.

Here is Haman in Persia : Prime Minister
of the great empire ; an able, unscrupulous
man ; a man of the loftiest pride ; of bound-
less ambition ; a very good representative of
the bitter and malignant nation from whose
kings he has come. And his port is kingly.
He knows how to exact homage, how to
smile and frown, how to win and terrify. He
rides forth to-day from the king's presence,
bearing with him the king's commandment
for all he may require. See how the courtiers

74 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

make obeisance, and how the people prostrate
themselves in the dust while he passes by !
But there is one who will not fall down, who
will not even rise from his seat. He is not
blind ; he sees the coming pomp. He is not
deaf; he hears the murmurs of adulation, but
still he moves not. " Oh, the man is a
foreigner, and does not understand. Let him
be told of the king's commandment, and then
he'll bow like the rest." He is told, and still
does not bow. He is remonstrated with, and
counselled to do according to the royal behest,
but in vain. Haman may come and go, but
he shall get no more notice from Mordecai
than the humblest menial of the palace.
Why ? Has he a reason ? Yes ; he is a
Jew. " He told them that he was a Jew,"
and as such could not render to man the
reverence which was due only to God, ajtd to
those (the king and the priest) who were
personally and expressly God's ministers and
representatives. But it is more than probable
that other reasons were working in his heart.
One cannot but think that some method of
testifying respect to the king's representative,
which would have done no violence to his

HAMAN AND MORDECAI. 75

conscience, and which would have got him
through, might have been found if he had
been anxious to find it. But the old national
antipathy is strong within him, and has its
counterpart in equal strength in the breast of
Haman. This meeting of Jew and Agagite
is the meeting of fire and water. One must
be consumed. There is probably an instinct
in the heart of Mordecai that peace is impos-
sible, and that even safety for himself and
his people is not to be attained under the
supremacy of this man.

At any rate the conflict is begun. You see
a man may begin a deadly quarrel by simply
sitting still and keeping silence. The world
says, " Shout, for I am coming ! " The world
says, " Fall upon your face, for I am passing
by!" And if he does not do it, the world
will say, " He is disloyal, that he is fanatical,
that he is setting himself above the law."
Thus the law is inflexible, perpetual. The
friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Observe, this is not fanciful moralising. It
is the lesson (one of the lessons) of the pass-
age. "Amalek is a scriptural type of Satan
and his powers, the spiritual enemy of God

7 6 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

and his people." Only in this way can we
fully understand, or perhaps fully justify, such
a word as this, e.g. (Deuteronomy xxv. 1 7),
" Remember what Amalek did unto thee by
the way, when ye were come forth out of
Egypt ; how he met thee by the way and
smote the hindmost of thee, even all that
were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint
and weary ; and he feared not God.'' Isn't
that the devil's way always — to smite the
hindmost, the feeblest, the weariest } To
watch for the pilgrim's halting .? To strike
at the soldier when his armour is off .^ And
has the world any mercy } or will it ever
have ? War with Amalek from generation
to generation, until his remembrance is blotted
out from under heaven. No bowing down to
Haman, whatever his splendour, whatever his
power. Even as Christ, from the devil on
the mountain-top having the offer of all the
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,
on the single condition of falling down and
worshipping Haman's chief, said, " Get thee
hence, Satan ; Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."
The matter, of course, soon came to Ha-

HAMAN AND MORDECAL 77

man's knowledge. There were plenty to tell
him. As far as the narrative tells us, they
seem to have been actuated by no improper
motive. It was their duty to see that the
law was observed and the commandment of
the king obeyed. But possibly some among
them were willing enough to tell Haman of
Mordecai's recusancy. Possibly enough they
did not much like this clever, watching,
pushing Jew, and were not ill-pleased with
the prospect of his having a fall, and being
taken out of the way of their own advance-
ment.

And now the eyes of the great minister as
he passes out of the gate are turned full on
Mordecai, and his face flushes with rage and
hatred. But it isn't a personal contest with
this solitary man that he will wage. He
feels, perhaps, that he could have him hung
to-morrow if he were to set his heart on it.
But — " they had showed him the people of
Mordecai'' — the Jews scattered through the
city and through all the cities. "Ha!" he
seems to have said with himself, " I know
them, as my fathers knew them. They are
our hereditary foes. They will make no

78 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

peace with us, and as long as the blood of
the royal house of Amalek flows in my veins
I shall make no peace with them. We shall
see which nation is first ' blotted out from
under heaven !' I hate them, with their
industry, and their greed, and their intoler-
ance. My great revenge has stomach for
them all ! " " He thought scorn to lay hands
on Mordecai alone, for they had showed him
the people of Mordecai."

To manage the king in the matter was
easy. He was not moving up and down
among his people. He dwelt in absolute
seclusion, and was dependent on his ministers
for information ; and here is one who has
proved himself to be jealous of the king's
honour, and zealous for the good of the
empire. What he counsels will be best.
And so the thing is arranged, and the edict
for the destruction of these disloyal plotting
Jews is virtually taken. But it must be
executed in due form — legally, religiously.
The lot must be cast to see at what time the
gods ordain the massacre ("the lot is cast
into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof
is of the Lord "). It was cast many times,

HAMAN AND MORDECAI. 79

and with all due solemnities, in the first
month of the year, but the omens would not
settle on any nearer time for action than the
last month of the year. Haman would have
hailed the second month, or the third, with joy,
feeling, no doubt, that "If 'twere well done,
'twere well it were done quickly." And the
king's treasuries would be the sooner enriched
with the promised spoil of the doomed people.
We see from this that they had settled in the
country, entered upon trade, amassed wealth
— for this strange people have always been a
money-making race, largely, probably, because
they have not been allowed to hold other
property. It is singular, and not without
significance in relation to the future, that at
this hour, and through the whole realm of
civilisation, more than any other people, and
much beyond the proportion which their
numbers would allow, they touch the springs
of monetary action, actually hold the money
of the nations, and, by its means, influence
largely the daily and monthly literature of
Europe, especially the political literature.

Such, then, is the situation — an unprin-
cipled monarch willing to do anything,

8o THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

however inhuman, to purchase safety, and
indulgence in every favourite pleasure. A
cruel, crafty, ambitious, grand vizier with an
old grudge to settle, as well as present designs
to advance — holding in his hands, for the
time, absolute power, and the sign and shield
of it in the possession of the king's ring.
What chance has this poor scattered people —
a few here, a few there, with no organisation,
no weapons of war, no leader, no military
courage, no political ability — against odds so
overwhelming as these ? This chance, that
there is in the heavens a hater of wrong, a
helper of the helpless, a divine controller of
all that happens on the earth — One who
exercises that control alike by the march of
irresistible armies, and by the apparently
capricious movements of the signs, whatever
they were, of the lot falling before the eyes of
the king. Every month is tried, and only
the last month is suitable. " On the last
month then let it be," says grim Haman.
" 'Tis long to wait, but the work may be the
more surely done. None, in the farthest
provinces, or in the most obscure condition,
shall now escape."

HAM AN AND MORDECAI. 8i

And anon the scribes are busy. The
deadly edict is written out in many languages,
and sent to the rulers of all the several peoples
composing the great nation, signed, and sealed
with the king's ring. And soon the posts
are on the road, hastened by the king's com-
mandment. And the two chief authors and
agents of this devilish decree — are they trou-
bled ? Have they compunctious visitings ?
Do they think of the mothers, of the little
children, who will perish in their homes or
on the streets ? We cannot know all their
thoughts. It is quite possible that they had
some strong relentings. But there was no
hesitation in their action : and, as far as the
narrative goes, there was none in their feeling.
With a sense of relief apparently, and breath-
ing more freely, as though they had escaped
some great danger, " the king and Haman
sat down to drink," while " the city Shushan
was perplexed." Or, if there were touches
of remorse and natural sorrow, or any
gigantic shadows of coming danger rising on
them out of the horrors which they had just
ordained, all such perturbations and appre-
hensions will best be allayed in the deep
G

82 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

wine-cup. O wine, thou consoler ! thou
deceiver ! thou strengthener ! thou destroyer !
thou refresher of the weary ! thou vanquisher
of the strong ! thou cheerer of God and man !
thou drink of devils ! — thou takest innocent
part in the joy of many a temperate banquet ;
and thou scatterest sweet memories and fair
virtues like withered leaves. Thou bringest
back the gleam of life into the sick man's
eye on his weary bed of pain, and thou art
chief undertaker and hast for thy mourners
broken hearts when dishonoured heads are
laid in drunkards' graves ! We may sit down
to drink with the king and Haman ! or we
may fill our glass with the beverage which
has been just taken as from the water-pots
of Cana, at His word who still says at all
temperate banquets, and on all right occa-
sions, " Draw out now and bear to the gover-
nor of the feast " ! If you prefer the bever-
age of the water-pots before the miracle, you
are free ! you are right ! that too is a gift
of God, the purest and the best. And there
is much to be said for keeping exclusively to
that — for certainly our modern society is not
quite like a simple rustic marriage company

HAMAN AND MORDECAI. 83

where there are many guests and little wine.
But if — not despising the water — you feel
that the wine too is yours, then take it, for
yourself and your friends, but under the
shadow of that word as wholesome as it is
solemn, " Let your moderation be known
unto all men — the Lord is at hand."

Many lessons of instruction and warning
might easily be gathered from this chapter.

1st. It shows in a lurid but striking man-
ner the diabolical chai^acter of Revenge. We
might connect with this the great evil and
danger of pride. Because revenge is a pas-
sion which can exist in any strength only, in
the mind of a man who is proud and selfish.
It is not easy to cast a slight that will be
much felt on a man of Jminble mind. He
has already the lowly estimate, and although
he may feel that injustice is done him in
particular instances, he will never be thrown
by such things into ungovernable fury, or
drawn into a course of calculated vengeance,
for he will consider in how many things he
is respected beyond what he feels he de-
serves, and how well it is when it so happens
that there should be some balance. And in

84 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

any case he will content himself with a frank
and fair vindication in the matters where he
is assailed or denied his due. But a proud
and selfish man of necessity becomes malig-
nant and revengeful, and by a kind of brute
instinct will run furiously even upon those
who have done him no injury. There are
names on the roll of history, misnamed
'^ great'' — Alexander the Great, Frederick
the Great, Napoleon the Great. No man
can be really great who sports with the lives
and interests of his fellow-creatures — who
can coolly arrange for their destruction by
massacre or in war, simply in order to the
accomplishment of some of his own ambitious
schemes. Now, you may say that this is
shooting a long way from the mark. We
are not Alexanders, Napoleons, Ramans.
Well, I am afraid there is a little touch of
Haman in every one of us. Have you never
heard some one say, have you never said
yourself^ — " I don't like the family," and you
know nothing about the family, only you
have some grudge, well or ill founded, against
a particular member of it t Of the rest you
know as little as Haman did of the Jews

HAMAN AND MORDECAL 85

whom he wanted to destroy. Pride is pride,
and revenge is revenge in quality, although
they only show themselves in words with
little stings in them, and by insinuations that
have no known ground of verity. If we do
not make it our business to chastise our
spirits and purify them from the seeds and
shadows of these vices, in the forms in which
they can assail us, can we be quite sure that
if we were on the wider stage and had the
ampler opportunity, we should not be as this
devilish Amalekite .^

2d. Without glorifying the character of
this man Mordecai, of whom we really know
very little — he is a dark man — we are bound
I think to believe that his refusal of homage
was — not a freak of spleen and pride on his
part, which would put him in the same cate-
gory with Haman — but in some way a
matter of principle and conscience, and we
have therefore here, legitimately, a lesson of
personal independence. What meanness there
is in this country in bowing down to rank !
in letting some lordly title stand in the place
of an argument ! in seeking high patronage
for good schemes, as men seek the shadow of

86 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

broad trees on hot days ! in running after
royal carriages ! in subservience to power,
and adulation of wealth ! Rise up, Mordecai,
in thy Jewish gaberdine, and shame us into
manliness, and help us to stand a little more
erect ! Shades of the Covenanters and spirits
of the Puritans, draw not away from us and
our relaxed and accommodating ways, and in
your great society, and with the memory full
upon us of your plain sincerity and uncon-
querable courage, we will not bow down to
what is not true, to what is not honest, to
what is not good !

3d. Finally, a lesson of patience and quiet-
ness to all the faithful. Obey conscience,
honour the right — and then fear no evil.

Is the storm brewing t It may break and
carry much away — but it will not hurt you.
A little reputation is not yo2i. A little pro-
perty is not you. Health even is not you^
nor is life itself The wildest storm that
could blow, would only cast you on the shores
of eternal peace and safety.

But more probably the storm may melt
all av/ay in a while, and leave you in wonder
at your own fears ; and, in wonder still

HAM AN AND MORDECAL 87

deeper before the everlasting wisdom that
makes no mistakes, and the infinite tender
love that makes all things work for good to
the loving heart. Amen.

il

LECTURE V.

Chapter IV.
DEEPENING TROUBLE.

HE king and Haman sat down to
drink." " It is not for kings, O
Lemuel, it is not for kings to
drink wine ; nor for princes strong drink :
Lest they drink and forget the law, and per-
vert the judgment of any of the afflicted.
Give strong drink unto him that is ready to
perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy
hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty,
and remember his misery no more."

But may it not be that the king and Haman
ivere among the heavy-hearted that night } and
that they drank to forget their miseries } When
a great crime is committed, like that to which
they had just put hand and seal — a crime
against which humanity herself revolts with

DEEPENING TROUBLE. 89

a cry — may it not be that the soul suddenly
shivers as in the winter of moral poverty and
destitution ? The two most powerful men
in the world that night were cowards before
their own consciences ; and while seated
amid the splendours of the empire, are poorer
than the beggar at their gates. But here
they sit — while out yonder in the midst of
the city, one clothed in sackcloth and sprink-
led with ashes is rending the air with loud
and bitter cries of grief and consternation.
The same effect is produced everywhere, and
through all the provinces, by the bloody
decree. " Mourning," " fasting," " weeping,"
" wailing " ! Many lying low, like men dead,
in sackcloth and ashes !

But this man who cries so loudly and
bitterly at the centre of the city has more
occasion and cause than any one else for his
grief and wailing. For it is by his means —
through his refusal to bow to Haman — that
the whole calamity has come ; and although
he probably does not blame himself for act-
ing as he has done, he cannot but have his
soul stirred with profoundest anguish in look-
ing to the possible consequences of his action.

90 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

If you, going from one part of a city to
another, were to direct the driver of your
hired vehicle to go by one street rather than
the one usually taken, and some injury should
be done by the wheels of your carriage to
some one in the way — in the street of your
preference — an old woman lamed, or a child
killed — well, it would be very weak to blame
yourself for the perfectly innocent choice you
had made, as if you had committed sin in
making it. But how few would be able to
help the melancholy and almost self-reproach-
ful reflection, " O if I had only let the man
go his own way ! " From a supposition like
this, we can judge what a storm of emotion
would be surging in Mordecai's breast as he
thought of the possible destruction of a whole
people — his own people — by his means !
He " came even before the king's gate " — as
neai' to the gate as he dared. For none in
sackcloth might pass within the gate. They
that dwell in kings' houses wear soft clothing;
and use soft speech ; and follow gentle and
obsequious ways. Kings' houses are for
feasting, and grandeur, and beauty, and dis-
play, for the bright side of human life.

DEEPENING TROUBLE. 91

" Keep the shadows outside the gates.
Chase away pain and misery ! " And yet
misery can fix her fangs in a king's con-
science. Pain can write deep lines on kings'
faces. Death can " climb up into the win-
dows, and enter into the palaces," while not
a gate is unbarred, and not a servant is asked
to show the way. And rumour can enter !
The queen is kept in the dignity and safety
of seclusion ; like all the Persian women of
high estate. But Esther's maids and chamber-
lains are in communication with the world,
and of course she soon hears of what is tak-
ing place among her people, and especially
of Mordecai's behaviour. The queen is of
course filled with deep concern. But thinking
that probably the cause of all this mourning
might be something temporary and not
worthy of so much notice, and especially
grieved that her father (for such he had been
to her) should be so prominent in the demon-
stration of the grief — sent raiment to him,
with orders to take the sackcloth away. But
no ! It had not been lightly put on, and can-
not be thus put off. This man has a will of
his own ! He will not bow down to Haman.

92 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

He is not to be terrified. He will not put
off the dolorous robe although besought to do
so by one who is both a daughter and a queen !
He is not to be won. A born ruler of men !

" Then called Esther for Hatach " — that
one of the king's chamberlains who was
specially appointed to be as a lord in waiting
upon her — the queen. Silently, swiftly, and
very faithfully Hatach did his work. He
is soon in the street of the city, and being
there he soon finds the man he seeks ; and
delivering his message from Esther, soon
hears from him the whole case in all its black
particulars, and receives from him in return
a narrative and message to the queen which
will chill her blood as she listens to it, which
will melt her whole heart to tears, and then
(if the nobleness is in her, on which Mordecai
seems to count) will harden it into steel for the
deed of daring on which she must venture.

" Go to the queen," saith Mordecai, " thou
faithful Hatach, go instantly, and tell her all;
and take this document, show her the writing,
that her eyes may see on the inhuman page,
as it were, the blood of her people, and that
she may act accordingly!"

DEEPENING TROUBLE. 93

She is not, however, left to her own rea-
sonings and conjectures, or even her own im-
pulses, as to what the proper action is to be.
Mordecai decides that for her ; decides it
strongly; gives even no alternative; furnishes
therefore no excuse for fears, or opportunity
for natural vacillation ; she must go unto the
king to supplicate and make request for the
life of her people — '' And HatacJi came and
told Esther the words of Mordecai."

Then, probably, came a time of retirement,
of silence, of darkness, of brooding fear, of
heart-searching, and surely (although nothing
of this kind is told us) of prayer to the God
of her fathers.

Again comes forth the queen, pale, tearful,
perplexed, and asks for Hatach, who is again
at hand. For the time fear seems to have
prevailed in the mind of the queen — fear and
prudence. The likelihood of success in the
daring enterprise to which she was counselled
appeared to her very, very small. The likeli-
hood of failure — a failure fatal to her own life,
while in no wise helping to save the life of
her people — appeared very, very large ; as
well it might. He who deposed a queen for

94 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

not complying with a personal wish which
was rather against the law than otherwise,
will he scruple to take the very life of aiiotJier
who, bolder still, shall dare to break a law of
the empire, an inflexible custom of the court,
by appearing in his royal presence unbidden?
Undoubtedly the probabilities of the case are
on the side of Esther's fears ; and her message
now to Mordecai takes shape accordingly.

" Go tell him he is asking me to do what
is impossible ; what every one knows to be
impossible ; what, if attempted, will almost
certainly end my days. There is one law, and
no escape from it. Yes, there is the golden
sceptre ; and once I might have had good
hope of so moving the heart of the king by
the sight of my face, although unbidden, that
his hand would have grasped instinctively
that sceptre to bid me live ; but there also
some shadow has fallen, for I have not been
called to see his face for thirty days !"

All which is faithfully and quickly reported
to the man in sackcloth on the street ; and
one can imagine the disappointment, the
anxiety, the resolution which would work in
his very features. "Ah, then ! is she failing

DEEPENING TROUBLE. 95

me — she, the child of so much care, of so
much love — and in an hour like this, when
the life of all our people is in the balance,
when all hell is on the spring ? But it must
not be. Her woman's fears must be quelled
by that voice of parental authority which once
she so gladly obe3/ed, and which, I think, will
be potent with her still. Her queenly courage
must be reinforced by showing her the grandeur
of the act she is now called on to perform ; and
all that is saintly and pious in her must be
incited to action by a view of the service which
may be rendered to God and His cause!"

Swiftly, therefore, sorrowfully, but sternly,
he sends answer back in words which are distin-
guished for tragic pathos and grandeur, for re-
ligious loyalty, for patriotic loyalty to his own
people, for unsparing faithfulness to her whom
he loved, probably more than any other
human creature, and for wide and far-reaching
views of providence. In all these respects,
and in others, these final words of Mordecai
to Esther are wonderful words. " Think not
with thyself that thou shalt escape in the
king's house more than all the Jews. For if
thou altogether boldest thy peace at this time,

96 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

then enlargement and deliverance to the Jews
shall arise from another place ; but thou and
thy father's house shall be destroyed. And
who knoweth whether thou art come to the
kingdom for such a time as this.?" The
words took immediate effect ; and that effect
exactly the one designed. Indeed one could
almost fancy that even during Hatach's
absence Esther had thought better of it, had
become half ashamed of her fears, had risen
in her secret heart more into the heroic
mood, and had all but resolved to put " her
life upon the hazard of the die." For, as far
as can be seen, there is no more any hesita-
tion or delay ; and an answer is sent at once
to Mordecai, which in all respects is a noble
match to his message — in some respects even
more than a match for it. More devout,
more tragic, more noble. He is a man — she
is a woman ; he is free — she is little better
than a prisoner in her palace ; he can consult
with others — she has no heart to answer the
sorrow of her own ; his life is not endangered
by what he counsels her to do — her life will
depend on the mood of a wayward and fitful
monarch. Honour, to whom honour "> After

DEEPENING TROUBLE. 97

all it Is Esther who performs the noblest act.
She only has the opportunity ; but she is
equal to it. Serenely, piously, courageously,
equal to it. Nothing can be imagined more
discreet and beautiful than the whole order
and method of her resolution.

First, she wishes Mordecai to secure a fast
among all the Jews in the city, to continue
for three days and nights, in which she and
her maidens would join. This is (we think)
an appeal to heaven. True there is no men-
tion of prayer. This is one of the singular-
ities of the book ; and Bishop Wordsworth
makes it tell to Esther's and Mordecai's
disadvantage, and to that of their people.
Religiously they had been so deteriorated
that they had lost the habit and forgotten
the language of prayer, and fell into this
custom of fasting in a half superstitious
manner. The great body of the commenta-
tors, however, take it for granted as a matter
about which there can be no doubt that
prayer was joined with fasting. Indeed most
of them don't seem to notice its absence in
the narrative, but simply assert its presence.
Good Matthew Henry talks as if the prayer
H

98 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

were the thing mentioned, and the fasting the
thing to be inferred and explained. Certainly
the probability is strong that prayer and
fasting were joined. And so the act was
solemnly religious — an earnest appeal from
helpless human creatures exposed to great
peril to the great Ruler, in the full belief that
He could arrest the peril, and build a wall of
safety about them all. And who shall say
how much this time of fasting and prayer
contributed to bring about the result } Then
the entrance to the king shall take place.
And whatever be the issue, there shall be no
drawing back ! " So will I go in unto the
king : and if I perish, I perish !"

And now to close. In addition to the
instruction which we cannot fail to obtain, in
simply passing in review a narrative like this
— so full of human action and passion — there
are some points which we may lift up as it
were out of the narrative, to be contemplated
apart and for their own sakes.

Hatach the chamberlain gives us a good
subject for reflection ; and not a hackneyed

DEEPENING TROUBLE. 99

one. Pause we a moment then on this 2mdis-
tinguished name. Let the greater actors
stand aside — king and queen — Haman and
Mordecai — mourning Jews and raging Ama-
lekites — and let a servant (in high office no
doubt, but still a servant), rendering true fealty
in the spirit of reverence and faithfulness,
stand before us in his undistinguished honesty
and simplicity. We are not in so many
words told that he was honest and true, but
we instinctively feel it, and we see that it is
involved in the narrative. The queen begins
to be in sore trouble. The darkness is
deepening. Some unknown but dire calamity
is near — " Send me Hatach — I need my
truest and my best — ' that I may know what
it is, and why it is,' and what may be done
to prepare for, or avert the evil day."

Imagine, if you can, what this world would
be if all the Hatachs were taken out of it, or
taken out of its offices. Let Abraham have
no Eliezer ; Sarah no Deborah ; Naaman's
wife no little maid of Israel ; Saul no armour-
bearer ; Esther no Hatach. Let that pro-
cess go on through a particular section of
society, and what helpless creatures kings and

loo THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

queens would be, and all the men of great
name, arid all who live in state, and luxury,
and grandeur ! It would be like a landslip
in society. The upper stratum would come
sliding down, in some cases perhaps toppling
down in many things to a level with the
lowest. Not that the lowest stratum in
society — we mean the great working-class —
has any monopoly of the hard work, and the
consequent merit of upholding what we call
the social scale, or the framework of society.
They are at least as dependent as any other
class. In some senses they are even more
dependent upon others than others are upon
them. There are much harder workers than
the working men ; and if some who are now
high up because they have faculty, industry^
and principle, were, through any social shift,
thrown down, they would be up again to-
morrow, and it would be best for society that
they should be. But none the less on this
account should the privileged classes remem-
ber that they lean upon the class next to
them (as of course they in their turn do upon
others), upon the great faithful serving class
of different grades that comes between the

DEEPENING TROUBLE. loi

highest and the lowest. There are men in
government offices never heard of in pubHc
life, who have more merit in particular
measures which pass into law than some of
those whose names are connected with them.
There are managers and confidential clerks
who mainly conduct great businesses in the
city, and in whom their masters proudly and
safely trust. Or, to enter the private scene,
many a house is kept quiet and orderly, and
sweet and homelike, mainly by the untiring
assiduities of one confidential servant — one
or more. Let Hatach stand for them all,
and give them royal greeting, and one waft
of gratefulness as we pass along. Be proud
and thankful also any of you who are in the
class. To be serviceable and useful in this
world, or in any world, is to be great ! And
" in the regeneration," — in the rectified time
when men as well as things shall be put in
their proper places, kings and queens for
heavenly royalties will be selected from all
earthly stations, and lifted sometimes out of
very quiet and unseen places, and rulers for
celestial cities will be found often in men
over whom others have ruled.

I02 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

II.

Is it too much to say that we may see in
the illustrative example of this passage, what
may be called the divine meaning and pur-
pose of social elevation ? It is never brought
about in the providence of God, simply for
its own sake.

A man is not lifted up into some high
place only that he may be seen, talked of,
admired, envied. A Avoman is not advanced
out of simple, girlish life in a quiet home, to
shine in a court or move in high circles, or
be the possessor of great wealth, only for dis-
play, and for what is called the happiness of
passing days. No ; depend upon it, God
who has made the ladder for the rise has
something worthy and corresponding which
the person may do when he is at the top.

Some great truth may be witnessed for,
some higher duty may be done ; some trial
springing out of the advancement, or in some
relative way may be brought on by it, may
be encountered and endured in such a spirit,
and with such effects, that successive genera-
tions will enjoy the long benefit. And yet

DEEPENING TROUBLE. 103

how men counterwork God in this ! See how
wealth goes into ' showy houses, costly furni-
ture, luxurious feasts, prancing horses, and
all the hum, hurry, and parade of fashionable
life. Among those crowds which fill all the
ways of fashion, there are many gentle, tender
hearts by nature, and many nobler possibi-
lities at least, which are thus neglected, cor-
rupted, and destroyed.

The rules for safety are very simple and
easy. As you get, give. As you rise, fight
the demon of vanity and pride ; grapple
hard and close with the giant sloth. What
the hand finds to do, let it be done. Say
to your soul, " What moral elevations shall
I stand on now ? What service can I
do for those below, for those behind ?
How can I glorify ' the lifter up of my
head'?"

III.

The passage reminds us that there is often
in a human life a critical time, when the
whole character is tried and developed in
one way or another ; when the whole life is

I04 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

thrown this way or that by a single decision
of the will. Not that every one could find
in his own life anything strictly resembling
this trial, moral and providential trial, of
Esther. A poor, mechanical use of Scripture
is made, and a very narrow, formal view is
taken of our large and various human life,
when it is insisted that we must each and all
resemble, in this and that, people who lived
and died thousands of years ago. Still it is
a fact, that in human life there are testing
times, times of crucial severity, and probably
for each one supreme monient, when, as we may
say, all is lost or all is won. That pale,
trembling queen, shrinking back from a
danger which seems too near and certain to
be evaded if she takes one advancing step, is
the image of a doubting, daunted spirit,
arrested or hindered in its higher progress by
the terrors of the world, by strong tempta-
tions or allurements, by unworthy loves or
fears. That pale, trembling, yet adamantine
queen, with her eye on duty now, even when
duty is all but synonymous with death, is the
image of the delivered, resolved soul, when,
emerging from the struggles of the crucial

DEEPENING TROUBLE. 105

trial of life, it strives to enter in, and does
enter in at the strait gate, and passes along
the narrow way towards wealth, and large-
ness, and heaven.

IV.

We should not fail to observe what form
this supreme trial takes, when it is at the
height ; and what form personal victory in it
will take when it is achieved. It is a trial
of life — present life with its pleasures and
advantages : and the victory is achieved by
yielding present life — by giving it away, in
purpose, by " laying it on an altar," as we
say, by " losing it," as saith our Lord Jesus
Christ. "Now I am willing to go in," saith
the queen, " and in no craven spirit. And
if I perish, I perish." That is the language
of tried unselfishness — of victorious goodness
— of virtue and religion for every age. And
in the last resort every true soul should be
able, and as we cannot but believe would be
able, to say with Esther, ''If I perish, I per-
ish!' A lower self is sacrificed, that a higher
self may be vindicated. All is yielded up, if

io6 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

need be, to be crucified and slain — pleasure,
position^ life itself, that the true life may live
eternally.

V.

And last of all — that none may be dis-
couraged either concerning themselves or
their dear friends, remember that there are
many lives lived through and ended by death,
without opportunity given, at all resembling
this in the life of Esther, of declaring and
manifesting what is the deepest affection, and
what the supreme choice would be, if there
were a necessity for declaring it. About the
truth itself there cannot be, must not be, the
shadow of a doubt " He that loveth his
life, shall lose it." He who deliberately takes
and keeps his own selfish way — pleasure,
advantage, ease, profit, in his eye, while he is
blind to highest duty and holiest law of God
— he loses all. He soon runs through the
present, and there is to him no future to be
desired, no treasure bearing interest. " But
he that loseth his life, for Christ's sake, shall
keep it unto life eternal" — giving up all
when duty calls. He shall gain all in the

DEEPENING TROUBLE. 107

higher sense, and keep what he gains for
ever. About this we say there must be no
mistake : and surely we ought far more than
we do to be trying ourselves by these testing
words. But now, after all, see how few
human beings stand in supreme conspicuous
position before their fellow-creatures, at any
time in their life. How few therefore have
the chance of showing in any dramatic or
decisive way what metal they are made of,
and what or who rules their inward life.
Quietly, kindly, usefully they live, making
many a little sacrifice, which but for Christ
would not be made ; and doing many a
gentle deed, which but for Christ would not
be done ; and sometimes, too, things quite
brave and grand in their way, although
known only to few, and of such a nature
that they never can be spoken about to any
besides. Then quietly and unnoticed by the
great world they die, and are laid in the
grave, loved, lamented, honoured, by those
who knew them best and loved them most.
We claim them also, as pertaining to God's
true sacramental host. All are Christ's who
believe in Christ ! All are Christ's who love

io8 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

Him ! All are Christ's who can say or could
say for. His sake and in His strength, "If I
perish, I perish ! " Perish ? You shall never
perish if you are thus in Him. His gift is
eternal life, and none can pluck you out of
His hands. Amen.

LECTURE VL

Chapter V.

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE.

O everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose
under the heaven — a time to
laugh and a time to weep, a time to mourn
and a time to dance ;" and we may add, "a
time to fast, and a time to eat and drink and
praise the name of the Lord !" Queen Esther's
fasting is over ; and although she does not
take to feasting, which would, indeed, suit
ill with the occasion, she no doubt strength-
ened herself with what she needed before
taking the grand step — the results of which
could be known only by taking it.

"Now, it came to pass on the third day'' —
the third day of the passover. The decree

no THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

for destruction was made " on the thirteenth
day of the first month" (see chap. iii. 12) —
i.e. the day before the passover — and now the
first step towards deliverance is to be taken
on the third day of the passover. An opinion
is held by some interpreters (and, considering
the strikingly typical character of some parts
of Jewish history, it is not easy to say that it
is unfounded) that in this great deliverance
of the people, and in this recorded destruc-
tion of their enemy, and expressly by the
means he had devised for their destruction,
we are to see a distinct foreshadowing of a
far grander deliverance : that, viz., which was
wrought for the spiritual Israel, the universal
church of God, by Him who suffered at the
passover and rose again on the third day. We
may come upon this idea again ; meantime it
is well to keep it in mind, if only that we
may feel that this narrative is possibly more
spiritual, and more evangelical even, than a
superficial reader would suppose, and that
while giving account of the splendours, ex-
cesses, and intended cruelties of the Persian
court and its grand monarch, advised by a
crafty Amalekite, it is truly symbolising

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. in

Herod and Pontius Pilate, the Romans and
the people of the Jews, under satanic instiga-
tion, plotting the destruction of Christ and
His kingdom, but finding themselves utterly-
overthrown by the power of His very cross.
The analogy fails in several points ; in others
it is close and striking, and whether it be a
true and divinely intended analogy or not,
the rich natural interest of look will remain
for us.

On the third day behold the queen arrayed
in "royal apparel ;" or rather, if it were liter-
ally rendered, "Esther put on her royalty!"
There is no specific reference to dress. She
put on her queenly looks as well as her queenly
robes, and entered on her work v/ith all be-
coming dignity, and no doubt with due attend-
ance— not flurried, or timorous, or indignant,
but with seriousness, charm, and grace — in
" her royalty." So she stands before the king ;
"in the inner court," the veiy place over
which the special prohibition rests, over which
the death-sword hangs, threatening every ad-
vancing step. The inner court was the more
private residence of the monarch ; yet the
king was upon the throne, his sceptre in

112 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

his hand, engaged, therefore, probably in some
affairs of state, or concerning his kingly house-
hold. The king sat at the upper end of the
hall, which was always open at the front, so
that he could see all who entered into the
inner court.

He would see Esther almost at the mo-
ment of her entrance. A lord in waiting
might slip in unobserved, but not the queen!
In the Apocryphal book of Esther, it is said
she entered attended only by two maids.
"On one she leaned as carrying herself daintily,
while the other, following, bore up her train.
She was ruddy through the perfection of her
beauty ; her countenance cheerful and smil-
ing, but her heart was in anguish through
fear. While the king, on his part, clothed
in his robes of majesty, and all glittering with
gold and precious stones, was very dreadful.
As soon as he saw the queen he looked
fiercely upon her, while she, overcome with
terror, grew pale and fainted. The king, in
an agony, leaped from his throne, took her
in his arms till she came to herself, and then
spake loving words to her, and assured her
she should not die." That account we may

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 113

call, truly, Apoayphal It is little more than
a picture of the fancy, designed to produce
theatrical effects.

The two maids may be historical. Al-
though there is something also in the idea of
a quaint old author, that " it is likely she left
her attendants without, lest she should draw
them into danger ; and contented herself
(when she went in to the king) with those
faithful companions, faith, hope, and charity ;
who brought her off also with safety." It is
more natural and more in consonance with
the text of the history to think of her as
going into the actual presence, alone : "/ and
my maids will fast." " So will / go in unto
the king." "If / perish, I perish!" At
once she stands alone, in the place of peril,
in the place of hope. And when the king
saw her, she obtained favour in his sight.
The sight of her face in a moment awoke the
favourable feeling. As far as appears there
was no thunder on the king^s brow, no light-
ning flashes from his eye. The whole process
was accomplished in a look. When he saw
the queen, she obtained favour. If we like
to speculate on the possible reasons, there is
I

114 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

a wide field of conjecture. The hour of the
adventure, perhaps, was discreetly chosen.
Certainly Esther was not the woman to
choose an unfavourable hour if she knew it.
Was it after banquet } or after some good
news had reached him ? or at a time of the
day when he was known to be, generally, in
an amiable mood }

Or was there something peculiar on her
face ? — the beauty of the Lord her God upon
her ; a beauty with solemnity and grandeur
in it, like that which sat on Stephen's face
when he stood in a danger from which he was
not delivered. The same quaint author we
have quoted says, " Some faces we know
do appear most orientally fair when they are
most instamped with sorrow." But a better
reason than any other, perhaps, is this, that
" the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord,
as the rivers of water, and he turneth it
whithersoever he will."

It is, however, a constant fact in nature
that the sight of a face will do what nothing
else can do in the way of awakening love,
touching sympathy, securing trust, evoking
help, or, it may be, in the way of provoking

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 115

and stimulating feelings of a very opposite
description. If a purpose be very important,
and very good, generally it will be better
promoted by a personal appearance than by
any kind of representation. If I am seeking
a good thing, my face ought to be better than
the face of another for the getting of it ;
better, too, than my own letter asking it. If
the poor widow had sent letters to the unjust
judge, he probably would not have been much
discomposed ; but by her continual comings
she wearied him, and won her quest.

No doubt there are troublesome, pertina-
cious, unwarrantable comings, as well as in-
dustrious, benevolent, and self-sacrificing com-
ings ; and we must distinguish between the
one and the other both in the visits we receive
and make. We have no right to set up a
tyranny of benevolence, and because we are
satisfied of the goodness of our aims to force
these aims upon the attention of other people.
However, our true lesson from the passage
and the example of Esther lies on the other
side of the subject. What our hand findeth
to do our own hand should do, and not the
hand of another. Personal presence is a power

ii6 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

that nothing else can equal — in love, in sick-
ness, in days of peril, for sympathy with suffer-
ing, for helpfulness in any kind of difficulty,
we all have a king to go in unto ; we all
have a possible good to attain which can be
reached in no other way but by venturing
ourselves.

"And the king held out to Esther the
golden sceptre that was in his hand, and
Esther drew near and touched the top of the
sceptre." In reverence, in submission, and
for safety, she touched the top of the sceptre,
and then all the power of the empire was
between her and harm. We cannot assert
that this was meant to be a symbolical act ;.
but certainly it does express in a striking way
the method and the result of our coming as
sinners to God. The golden sceptre of grace
is ever in the King's hand. Never does He
cast one wrathful glance upon any who ap-
proach unto Him ; He is on the throne of
grace, that He may be gracious. When we
touch the sceptre we yield submission ; we are
reconciled, accepted, and protected by all the
forces of the universe, and by all the perfec-
tions of God.

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 117

" What wilt thou, Queen Esther, and what
is thy request ?" There is something kindly
and auspicious in the naming of the name.
" What wilt thou ? It shall be even given
thee to the half of the kingdom." This is
hyperbolical language. It was understood to
be so ; and any one asking the literal fulfil-
ment of it would have been quite as likely to
get the whole' of the kingdom as the half of
it. Herod, indeed, stood to the letter of his
shameful promise to the dancing damsel on
his birthday; but would he have stood to it
still if she had asked for his own head in a
charger, instead of John the Baptist's t There
must always be a limit understood, if not
expressed. As also in the case of the far
grander promises of God to his children, when
he says, "All things are yours." That is true
within its own proper limits ; " all things are
ours" as far as we need them, and can receive
them. Esther knew quite well that the king's
words were not to be literally taken ; and
although she was not going to ask for half
the kingdom, or, indeed, for any of the king-
dom strictly speaking, she yet felt that her
request — the request she was about to prefer

ii8 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

— was sufidciently serious to demand her ut-
most prudence in the way of presenting it.
Nothing, in fact, in its way can be more
admirable than the queen's self-possession and
thoughtful prudence in this part of the busi-
ness. Many a woman, of more impulsive
temperament, would have seized on the king's
promise as soon as uttered, and would have
impeached the enemy of her race publicly and
passionately before the very throne. But no;
there were reasons sufficient against that
method. For one thing, Haman does not
seem to have been present — not in close
attendance at this time — and she wishes to
charge him to his face. Or she knew that
the king would be more likely to listen at the
banquet which (again with womanly fore-
thought) she had already prepared, and to
which she now, with all respect and humility,
ventures to invite the king. " The king and
Haman !" " Let the king and Haman come !"
"Ah ! then she thinks of him whose society I
most enjoy, whom I most delight to honour.
Yes ; let Haman come with me to the banquet,
and cause him to make haste. We will go

now

I"

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 119

And to the banquet they came. The
king pleased and propitious, Haman exult-
ant.

Esther's banquet, although no doubt costly
and splendid, and suitable to the occasion,
would not in any respect, except perhaps
beauty and tastefulness, vie with the great
royal banquet which went on in the Persian
palace every day. Not less than a thousand
victims bled daily to furnish forth the tables
of the palace itself and of all who were con-
nected with it — servants, guards, soldiers,
satellites. Esther's banquet was probably
little more than fruit and wine. Possibly the
king had just dined, and was as ready as
any modern prince or merchant would be for
the banquet of wine.

See, he is now in the queen's drawing-
room, shall we say 1 — reclining on a couch
with golden feet, taking sips now and again
of the golden water which was specially pre-
pared, and of which he and his so7i alone
might drink, and then, as the banquet went
on, drinking freely of the wine. Haman is
on the ground, no doubt on a rich mat or
carpet. The queen, too, has her couch and

I20 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

her royal attendance ; but to-day, as we may
well suppose, is concerned chiefly that the
king shall be thoroughly pleased. He is
well pleased. For soon he makes request,
in the same language he had used when the
golden sceptre was in his hand, to know the
queen's petition, and gives the same promise
that it " shall be granted, even to the half of
the kingdom."

But, strange to say, Esther is not yet
ready to speak it out. Was there, after all,
a something in the king's aspect which made
her pause 1 — or was it that she had not yet
fully decided on the best method of unfolding
the case 1 — or was it that she would engage
the king's affection, if possible, more strongly
on her side by a secoiid banquet, and by all
the charms she herself could throw around it }
Or was it that she would heighten the
importance of the communication, to the
king's apprehension, by delaying it } Or
was it that her heart misgave her at the
last moment, and she shrank, in womanly
fear, from the revelation which yet was beat-
ing and burning in her breast } Or rather,
was it not, like so many other things in this

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 121

history, a wise and striking providence of
God making use of some of these human
feelings and secondary things to obtain needed
delay, in order that other things might come
in, the things narrated in the next chapter ?

This last is the true answer. In this his-
tory, pre-eminently one thing is interwoven
with another, is dependent on another. Look-
ing superficially on the matter, you would
say, There can be no need of delay ; already
there has been delay ; and the very hour has
now come, and this is the place to divulge
the secret. The very persons are here before
whom it will be told to-morrow — the king,
the queen, Haman ! Then why delay t Nine
people out of ten would have said, if con-
sulted beforehand — " Ah, she is losing her
case, through fear or through finesse, or by
some evil counsel. She is losing the ripe and
favourable hour, which will never return. To-
morrow ! O Queen, why not to-night .'' "
And so, oftentimes, we would hasten provi-
dence in our own affairs, fretting against His
wise delays, and laying our poor shoulders to
the great wheels of God, as though He were
not moving them fast enough, when, in fact,

122 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

they are going as evenly as the sun, as sub-
limely as time itself. " The king is here ;
why not speak ? " Yes, he is here, and he is
not here. He is not here as he will be to-
morrow night. To-night he will be sleepless.
To-night he will be reminded, through his
sleeplessness, of an act of loyal faithfulness
on the part of Mordecai, which has been
hitherto unrewarded. To-night the order
will be given for the preparation of a gallows.
In a word, when the same three meet at to-
morrow's banquet, they will be the same, and
yet not the same. They will be really in
different relations to each other, and to many
beyond. So the banquet is ended, as if by
the utterance of the word, " wait." " He that
believeth shall not make haste."

Haman makes haste home with a glad
heart. What a step in advance he has made
now ! King and queen vying with each
other to do him honour ! " Let the king and
Haman come to-morrow," said the queen
when he took his leave. "Joyful and with
a glad heart " he passes through the gates
towards his house. And as he goes along
there is, as heretofore, universal reverence

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 123

most obsequiously made. All rise as he comes,
and bow low as he passes by. All except
one. And in a moment he knows that one.
His secret soul is on the watch, instinctively,
for the hated form of Mordecai. His enmity
is so deep and constant, that it would be al-
most a disappointment to him if that form
were not there. But there it is — to his jaun-
diced vision " squat like a toad " — or crouch-
ing like a tiger in his lair ! although it is
likely that Mordecai was sitting calmly enough
— possibly with some thoughts in heaven
seeking help there for all this earthly trouble.
But there he sits, certainly, and will not rise.
If a controversy like this is worth beginning,
it is equally worth continuing to its proper
end. Haman's brow darkens as he passes,
his heart beats faster. Rage possesses him,
and runs like fire through his veins. His
very fingers itch and feel like fangs which he
would gladly fix in strong death-grip in the
heart-strings of his enemy ! He was full of
indignation. — But "he refrained himself."
There was a danger then that he might
break out against him there and then ! That
he might play the king for the nonce, or

124 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

feign the king's authority and cry, " Have
that vile caitiff away to instant execution."
But this would have been too high a game
to play, and a salutary fear of the highest
authority kept him in check — all the more
that he felt persuaded that he could, in a day
or two, accomplish, in one way or other, his
fell purpose under the sanction of the law.

So now he is home ! Yes, that word
" Home " is used about Haman's house —
that word which is in some ways more
musical than any other — which is all full of
balm, and blessing, and kindness, and gentle-
ness, and grace ! How much of all this there
was in Haman's house, it would be harder
than some would imagine to tell. That
wretch Nero, who came perhaps as near ab-
solute fiendishness as a human being could,
had some who seemed almost to love him.
When he fled from Rome, chased by univer-
sal execration, and took refuge in the house
of a freedman, an old and faithful nurse fol-
lowed and ministered to him !

Haman had a wife Zeresh, said by the
Targum to be the daughter of Tatnai, the
Persian governor on the western side of the

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 125

Euphrates. He had ten sons — how many
daughters we know not, daughters were Httle
thought of in those times. He had friends
also, most of them no doubt fair-weather crea-
tures, possessing Hke riches good strong wings
to flee away with when occasion shall come.
But, as this world goes, very good friends to-
day. And they hasten at the great man's
call to his house ; expecting no doubt to
hear some very special tidings of the queen's
banquet, and what came of it, and certainly
not expecting to hear any complaint from
Haman's lips. Nor do they for a while.
He began a kind of set speech to them, the
subject of which was himself! His wealth,
his children, his honours, are all dilated upon,
carefully put into a narrative for a purpose.
Nor does the proud and vain man forget to
add the crowning circumstance, the very last
that had occurred, that he alone had been
allowed to go with the king to the queen's
banquet ; and that he brought an invitation
home with him from the queen herself that he
should to-morrow repeat the visit. And now
comes the purpose of this long and vain-
glorious narrative. It is to give weight to

126 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

a most dolorous complaint, to tell them in
fact th^t " all this avails him nothing, so long
as he sees Mordecai the Jew sitting at the
king's gate." In all history perhaps we have
no more striking instance of the utter in-
sufficiency of the very highest forms and
fullest measures of worldly good to secure
individual happiness — the happiness of a
worldly man ! One thing lacking, or one
thing present and irrevocable, makes a hun-
dred other things of no avail ! One fly in
the ointment makes it to send forth a stink-
ing savour, at least to the dainty nostril.
Ahab wears a crown and rules a kingdom,
and yet, failing to get a vineyard which
he coveted, from poor Naboth the owner,
he takes to his bed and will eat no bread !
Ten thousand men will rise up to Haman
when he appears in the city — but the
fact that one will not, is enough to poison
his peace and make him completely miser-
able.

And the whole boastful narrative is really
an appeal to his friends and to his wife to
help him out of the misery by giving him
wise counsel and advice. They were not

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 127

long in consultation. They had no difficulty.
To them the case was clear. It would be a
degradation to Haman to speak to such a
man, or to make any farther endeavours to
bring him to a better state of mind. He
has forfeited his life. Listen to the judgment
of these friends in council : " Let a gallows
be made — a wooden tree — a cross in fact —
5 o cubits high ! — about 7 5 feet, higher than
any ordinary house ; intended to be so that
it might be seen from afar, over the whole
city ; and that it might proclaim as long as
it stood Haman's victory and Mordecai's
shame." " Let a gallows be made, and to-
morrow speak thou unto the king, that
Mordecai may be hanged thereon." Swift
and terrible is the doom thus designed. No
doubt they meant that he should be seized
at once — in the night — asleep, and held
ready for execution in the morning. " Then
go thou in merrily with the king unto the
banquet!" "There will be no Mordecai sit-
ting at the gate going in or coming out !
No plots hatched among your enemies. No
more opposition to your sway."

And this judgment is spoken by the wife

128 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

to the husband ! In calling the council
Haman. called his friends, and his wife. It
may be a matter of no real import this
arrangement ; but if he did entertain any
doubt of his wife's ability to grapple with the
merits of a stern case like this, and with un-
shrinking nerve to proclaim the issue, he is
mistaken. She is equal to the occasion.
Her policy is the firmest ; she is the first in
reply. One hopes that the first idea and
suggestion of the gallows did not come from
her. But there is no telling. A woman of
high capacity, of strong nerve, and milk of
human kindness turned to gall, is terrible !
Jael with the nail and the hammer standing
over the sleeping trustful guest, is a dreadful
picture. Jezebel half-scornfully saying to
her husband, " Dost thou now govern the
kingdom of Israel } " " / will give thee the
vineyard of Naboth ! " And here, Zeresh,
of whom this is all we know, " You shall go
merrily to the banquet to-morrow ! " Lady
Macbeth is not a historic character. She is
a creation of high poetic genius. But she is
no exaggeration of what a feiv women have
been and done in human history. We can-

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 129

not help making the supposition that Shake-
speare, in portraying that grand terrific
creature, had in view, among others, these
scriptural portraits of awful women.

Jael cried to Barak, " Come, and I will
show thee the man whom thou seekest," and
she took him into the tent and showed him
Sisera lying dead, with the nail in his
temples! Jezebel said, "/ will get your
vineyard. It is but that an innocent man
shall be stoned to death ! " Zeresh — " Go
merrily to the banquet!" Lady Macbeth to
her relenting husband — " I have given suck,
and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that
milks me : I would, while it was smiling in
my face, have plucked my nipple from his
boneless gums, and dashed the brains out —
had I so sworn, as you have done to this."

The truth is women are the best and the
worst. Because they can be the best, they
can be the worst. Because they can rise to
the highest in moral grandeur, in self-sacri-
ficing love, in the things which bring human
nature nearest to the angelic mood, therefore
they can sink to the lowest, and when " past
feeling " can be most like the angels fallen.
K

I30 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

Nor let all this kind of reflection seem to
be too ' far away from us. Remember such
scriptural expressions as these : — " Of one
blood V " Of like passions',' and that they tell
both ways. The saintliest of the saints are
to be imitated and followed with all our
desires and endeavours, as those whom we
may overtake, and of whom we may be the
spiritual associates in a while. And the
darkest and most abandoned of men and
women are to be pitied indeed, but also
feared, and regarded with a sensitive and
shrinking aversion as those into whose dark
company we might, by circumstances, be
drawn. Thank God if you have a wife or a
husband who would give you merciful, and
not malignant, counsel, if in any conflict you
were ever brought into straits. Thank God
if your friends are of milder temper, as no
doubt they are, than Haman's. Thank God
that your best friends would renounce your
society rather than stand by you in anything
revengeful or mean.

We all have reason to thank God for our
lot, and for the falling of the lines in places
so pleasant. How little need have we to

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 131

envy the rich, the great, the titled, the power-
ful ! How much occasion to be pleased with
quietness, even with commonness, and all the
benign obscurities of ordinary life ! Better
so shall we find the sure pathway to heaven.
We have no need to envy our own great men
— not even when they are good. See how
they are suspected, maligned, and tossed from
places they have adorned by unsuspected
ecclesiastical and political combinations, and
how every writer in the daily press thinks it
necessary to "weigh them in his balances
and find them wanting."

If any of us were called to stand in
high place, and render great public service,
and if we had the requisite capacity, we
should no doubt find motive enough to do
our work, even in the face of strong criticism
and constant misjudgments. But we may
well enough be thankful that we have not
the ability, or that having the ability, few of
us are called in God's providence to anything
beyond the more or less even tenor of an
ordinary life.

If we feel rightly, no life will be dearer to
us than common life, and it may well be that

132 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

no companionship or society could be more
really profitable to us than those we find
among what are termed common people.
Great people are spoiled for the life that
most men must lead. Life becomes policy,
watchfulness, ingenuity, reserve. In common
life it is easier to be simple, sincere, sympa-
thetic, helpful, loving, and easier to find the
narrow consecrated way that leads through
earth to heaven. Of all the myriads this
day in heaven, an immense preponderance in
numbers must have been prepared for it in
what are called common scenes, and must
have gone to it by unseen and undistinguished
paths. The chosen disciples and friends of
the Son of God were fishermen and vine-
dressers. God's chosen sons and daughters,
those with whom He will hold eternal fellow-
ship in higher scenes, are found — where }
Many of them in lowliest places. In cottages,
in huts, in desert tents. In small houses of
narrow streets. In crowded ships. Remem-
ber it is the little child only that enters
into His kingdom. Remember it is the
lowly who have the promise of grace.
Remember that the meek are the largest

THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE. 133

proprietors, being inheritors of all the earth ;
and that it is the poor in spirit who have
title and preparation for the kingdom of
heaven.

LECTURE VII.

Chapter VI.
THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT.

N that night, could not the king
sleep." How many different causes
or occasions there may be of the
sleepless night ! Some cannot sleep in the
remembrance of recent sin. Some are kept
waking by great sorrow. Some by brain
excitement. Some in very weariness of over-
work. Some, " through the multitude of
business," don't get even the length of the
" dreams " which haunt the pillows of others.
In a comparative sense we may say, " Happy
are those who dream," for that shows that
they are asleep.

Without staying to construct even the
briefest homily on sleep, we may well, in

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 135

passing on, pause for one moment in grateful
recognition of this immense benefit which
comes to the human race with the sinking of
every sun. Without it human Hfe would
soon come to an end. It would burn rapidly
away. With unfailing regularity this great
boon comes — " Tired nature's sweet restorer,
balmy sleep." But it comes with most
regularity and in greatest abundance to those
who live the simplest and most regular lives.
" The sleep of the labouring man is sweet
whether he eat little or much ; but the abun-
dance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep."
We do not know, however, that the sleepless-
ness of Ahasuerus was caused by over-indul-
gence. It may have been so : or it may not.
More probably it came through some public
cares. Says an old author concerning sleep.
They are likeliest for it, who, together with
their clothes, can put off their cares, and say,
as Lord Burleigh did when he threw off his
gown, " Lie there. Lord Treasurer." Did
some flitting shadows bear the king com-
pany home from Esther's banquet ? Was he
troubled by her strange request for delay ?
Half afraid of the unknown future — of some

136 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

possible perils which might be lurking even in
his court, and through the unexpected delay
might break out this very night ? We know
not. But here at least is a wonderful thing —
a man who, in kingly rule, commands an hun-
dred and twenty and seven provinces cannot
command an hour's sleep ! Ah, great mon-
arch, see how the happy slave released from
the daily task and yoke, and the little infant
who cannot yet shape conscious thought, can
go so easily sailing into the placid realm
which to-night is fast shut against thee !

If the king cannot sleep, how can he best
spend the time ? They say it was usual with
the ancient monarchs of the East to call for
instruments of music to beguile the sleepless
hour, and by some soothing strains to lull
them into slumber at last Nothing of this
kind was proposed ; nor anything in the
shape of amusement. Somehow it comes
that the king is in no trivial mood to-night.
Neither singers, nor players, nor actors, nor
dancers, nor readers of the lighter kind of
literature, whatever that may have been, will
be welcome to-night. " Something must be
read. Yes, I shall have an hour of reading ;

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 137

but it must be something that is true, serious,
and with a meaning in it — bring the book of
the records of the Chronicles." This record
seems to have been a ptiblic book, written
apparently by official authority, and by the
historians of the court — a book of reference,
from which the reigning monarch might read
or not read as he chose. Some think
Ahasuerus had never read in it before. It
seems more likely, however, that he had,
although perhaps but seldom. Some, too,
think that the reading was simply to beguile
the time, and, if possible, induce slumber.
And if reading then had anything like the
monotonous, soporific sound, which reading
often has now, the specific would not be a
bad one. Rather, however, we interpret the
king's mood and purpose to be altogether
more serious. Not, indeed, that he has any
idea of what is going to come of it : what
comes of it is purely in the providence of
God. But his thoughts are about his king-
dom when he calls for the records. And
they are read, probably by one of the princes.
Of course it could be only a small part of
those records that could be read in an hour

138 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

or two of that sleepless night. The wonder
is that- the reader fell upon the particular
passage or chapter which narrated the king's
danger from conspiracy, and his happy escape
from it through the loyalty and faithfulness
of Mordecai. " The book opened at this
particular place," say some of the Jewish
doctors, and continued so — " The eye of the
courtly reader falling upon the narrative, and
his judgment telling him that the incident
was most unsuitable to be read to the king
in his present nervous and apprehensive con-
dition, he turned to other parts, but still the
book or roll continued to open itself at the
one place !" Of course we reject that fable ;
but we must accept the wonderful fact that,
some way or other ^ the book did so open at
that place. Out of hundreds of chapters to
choose from, tJiis was the one that came.
Probably other things preceded this in the
reading. It was the last that came ; and it
came with some power to the monarch's
heart. Some way or other he had not
thought much about it before, but he thinks
the more of it now. Now, in the night,
susceptible, excited, secretly alarmed as he

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 139

is without knowing of any specific cause for
the fear, a circumstance Hke this impresses
itself indelibly upon his mind. " Was I in-
deed so near to death, by the treacherous
hands of vile assassins, who had promised to
be my special protectors ^ and was I saved
by a stranger's faithfulness — by one who had
received no royal favours, and who did what
he did in simple honesty and truth ? What
has been done to that man ? What honour
and dignity has he received for this ? Ah
now I bethink me how I meant to reward
him, but how in the pressure of things the
purpose was postponed ! I thought he would
be sure to come forward expecting reward,
and I should thus be reminded of his claim ;
but surely he has not been altogether for-
gotten ! My senators and chief men must
have given him something — emolument or
office in the way of recompense. What
honour and dignity hath been done to
Mordecai for this V And the king's servants
answer, " There is nothing done for him !"

" Nothing has been done to him ! Nothing t "
It pleases the monarch ill. It reflects on his
accustomed liberality — on the liberality of

I40 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

the throne, for all the Persian monarchs were
open handed. This very monarch gave
Megabyzus for his good service at Babylon
a golden mill weighing six talents. Themis-
tocles, the famous Greek, had three cities and
above two hundred talents of him — " and
nothing done in recognition of a brave and
beneficial action like this V — Well might I
be sleepless while such a service remains un-
rewarded— " Who is in the court ?" He hears
a footfall and the rustle of garments, as if
some one had just come in. " Some one in
the court V Why then, it must be morning
— early morning, the dawning of the day.
The night has worn away, the first part of it
in sleepless tossings and anxious thoughts, the
next in listening to that arresting and strangely
forgotten tale. And now the east is rosy,
and morning is climbing the mountain-tops,
and shedding down some awakening glow
into the sleeping valleys and athwart the
vast plains. And some one has come thus
early to be, if possible, the first who shall
secure the monarch's ear, when he shall be
pleased to give audience. "Who is in the
court.-*" " Haman is in the court." What,

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 141

so early ? Yes. For truth to say Haman
too has had a sleepless night, and with more
occasion. A fire of hatred and revenge
burning fiercely in the breast is not likely to
induce sleep. And just when he is falling
over there comes again and again through
the night air the sound of hatchet and ham-
mer, and he knows too well the meaning of
the sound. That gallows is rising in the
darkness — higher and higher yet — and now
he is here in the dawn to make sure that the
hated man shall hang on it. " Haman is
in the court." " And the king said. Let him
come in." And now again they are together.
Think, I pray you, for a moment, how
much depends on who shall speak the first
word ! Suppose the king had said to his
prime minister, as he very well might, " My
lord, you have come early. You have some-
thing to ask. Freely speak your request."
And then suppose Haman, pouring into the
monarch's ear, skilfully, as he knew so well
how to do, his indictment against Mordecai,
pressing the charge most heavily, perhaps not
on personal grounds, but because he would
make him out to be a deep designing enemy

142 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

of crown and kingdom — In such a case I say,
who knows whether Mordecai might not have
hung fifty cubits high in the Hght of that
morning sun ? No doubt Haman had men,
armed and ready, waiting but for the sign
to have it all done. But it is not so to be.
Haman must wait. The king's trouble comes
first to-day. There must be no more delay.
No other things must now press in until justice
is done to a neglected man. " Tell me, my
Lord Haman, what shall be done to the man
whom the king delighteth to honour V Alas,
poor Haman ! how misleading the question,
and how little thy king knows what a tumult
of ambition it will stir in thy breast ; and
what visions of glory it will bring up before
thine eyes ! At this point we almost pity
Haman. If our sympathies do not go to his
side, they are at least for the time suspended.
There is a kind of tantalising cruelty in the
king's speech, although it is not in the least
so intended by him, and we watch Haman as
we should watch a bird drawing nearer to the
snare, or some fierce beast falling unsuspect-
ingly into the hunter's toils.

" To whom," saith he in his heart, " more

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 143

than to myself^ would the king delight to do
honour?" It must be so; of late I have
not had a serious rival. All has been coming
into my hands. And now — What t when
so much is in my power } Money } I have
enough, or can get it easily. A distant city
to rule ! I wish to live here in the chief city
of all. A title ! I have already a great
name and a great place, and nothing less
than this is suited to the case, that I should
now put on, at least, some outward show of
royalty itself, and be seen of the people in
such monarchic splendour through the whole
city. The people, after seeing me in this-
royal array, may begin to think — Who
knows, who knows, what they may think t It
is not for me to lose the great chance which
is thus brought to my hand." Then he gave
his counsel — that there should be accorded
to this unknown man, about whose identity,
however, he had a joyful presentiment, a
triumphal, and in some sort royal progress
through the city, mounted on the king's
horse — the horse which was reserved exclu-
sively for the king's use — clad in royal
apparel, which was very gorgeous, consisting,

144 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

in part, of a magnificent turban, of a diadem
of white and purple colour, of a rich purple
stole or robe of state, reaching down to the
heels, covered with gold and precious stones,
and symbolical pictures of various living
creatures ; a rich cassock, with golden girdle,
and, indeed, all of costly barbaric splendour
that could be put upon a human person.

Wearing the crown, or rather the meaning
seems to be, having the crown borne in the
procession so conspicuously that it might be
seen that the king gave the most complete
sanction to it. He hardly could have pro-
posed to put the crown on any head but the
king's ; and it is in conformity with this that
the king, in his reply, mentions the apparel
and the horse, but says nothing of the crown.

There can be no doubt that Haman means
the whole to be a stupendous stroke in his
personal policy for advancement, and that he
means, at least, to suggest to the common
imagination certain possible eventualities
which he would have shrunk from putting
into language — " Admiring peoples, behold !
If ever a monarch should be needed, you
know where to find him !"

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 145

The counsel is given, and the great man,
simulating indifference, perhaps even affecting
humility, waits for the reply. He has not
long to wait, probably not many moments.
" Yes ; thou hast said well. Make haste,
and let it all be done, even as thou hast said,
to Mordecai the Jew that sitteth at the kin^s
gate .'" Alas, poor Haman ! This answer, so
joyously and hopefully waited for, is a sword
in thy vitals, is a rope around thy neck ; and
none the less fell and fatal that thy king, in
speaking, means it not so, knows nothing of
thy secret feuds and passions, of thy secret
hopes and expectations. And this surely
must be the special bitterness of the case to
thee, that thou hast thyself woven the rope
for thine own neck, fashioned the sword
which will cut thee to the quick. It is thine
own overblown pride, thine own vast ambition,
thine own devilish enmity, which thus came
back upon thee with tremendous recoil.

The contrasts are wonderful between what
was expected and what thus comes. They
are drawn out by an old author thus — " Now
he must perforce honour him whom he had
hoped to have hanged ; clothe him whom he
L

146 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

hoped to have stript ; help him up to his
horse upon whose grave he hoped to have
danced ; prepare a triumph for him for whom
he had prepared a tree ; make proclamation
before him as a crier, lead his horse as a
lacquey, do all ofiices for him as a slave or
underling — oh, what a cut, what a cordolium
was this to a man of his mettle and making !"
And there was no time to get out of it. It
must be done now — in this early morning
time, before the heats of day come on. Make
haste. If he could but have had a short hour
to think it all through, and see where he
stood ! and to consult that gentle wife of his
and those friends who, by the vigour of their
counsels, have helped him into this trouble, if
perchance they might help him out of it —
but no. The whole matter must be transacted
before he can see their faces. And done it
was. Josephus says that Mordecai thought
Haman mocking him when he came to him
with the robes, and the horse, and the trium-
phal pomp, and said unto him, sorrowfully,
but with unbroken courage, " Thou most
wicked man, dost thou thus insult over the
miserable.?" But being assured that it was

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 147

in truth the king's pleasure, he suffered him
to do it. How Haman did it — really got
through with it — is one of the wonders of the
case. Yet what will not a man do for safety
and life ? Disobedience was not possible to
a kingly command so express and urgent.
It was done ; and Mordecai came again
to the king's gate ; and Haman hasted to
his house, mourning and having his head
covered.

That procession through the Persian capi-
tal, conducted and managed by the great
Amalekite prince, in honour of the despised
Jew, is, in some ways, perhaps the most
remarkable that ever took place in history.
There is nothing else like it. Two or three
hours would finish it. But it has been teach-
ing the world some striking and much-needed
lessons ever since ; and it will continue to
teach them as long as the world lasts —
as long at least as there are good and
bad men in the world, and ups and downs
in life, and a providence of God working
in all.

148 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

I.

It teaches us how well a good man can
afford to wait for the due acknowledgment of
his uprightness, and for any reward he may
need for the good he has done. The conjec-
ture is that six long years had gone by since
Mordecai revealed the plot of the chamber-
lains and saved the king's life, and not even
a word of acknowledgment had come to him
during all that time. At first he would natu-
rally look for something of the kind, for it
was usual, it was kingly, on such occasions to
confer honours and give rewards ; but as time
went on expectation would, of course, diminish,
and finally, in all probability, die away, so that
when acknowledgment and reward come none
is more surprised than he who had ceased to
expect them. But what we most admire is
his behaviour meantime. If he had been a
self-seeking man, he could easily have found
means to refresh the king's memory as to his
services ; but he kept silence. If he had been
a malignant man, he might have sought what
he would, in that case, have called a just re-
venge for the ungrateful neglect with which

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 149

he had been treated, by hatching or falling in
with some other plot. But no ; he keeps his
place, and does his office at the gate quietly
and faithfully, and without fail, expecting
nothing, complaining of nothing, faithful to
duty, and fearing God. And then, how well
all turns out in the end ! How much better
than if the reward had been given at the time !
Suppose he had got some gift or office at the
time, the answer to the king's question could
not have been, " Nothing has been done for
him ;" and Raman's plot would not have been
arrested, but would have rolled on, on wheels
of fire, towards the destruction of a whole
people. " He that believeth shall not make
haste ;" God's time is always the best. Six
years are to the Lord as so many moments.
And God's method of reward and acknow-
ledgment is the best too. Seldom, indeed,
does it take in the case of any of his servants
a form so dramatic as this. We misapprehend
and degrade the dramatic element in this
history if we crave the repetition of it. It is
brought out here in such tragic splendour in
order that the great moral truth may be
stamped deeply in human memory, and may

ISO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

stand out vividly to the human imagination.
You have done some good things in your time
which have never been acknowledged, or never
adequately rewarded, even as such things go
among men. Even a few frank kindly words
from the proper quarter would have been
something. As it is you are sometimes a little
chilled and discouraged by what you feel to
be the complete and unwonted neglect. Well,
now, don't expect Haman at your door some
fine morning with the king's horse, and the
royal apparel to make you all purple and gold,
and the blaring trumpets to tell all the city
what you have done; he is not likely to come ;
you must do as you can without him. Right-
eousness is its own reward, and we are never
righteous as God would have us be until we
feel this deeply and act accordingly. If we
stipulate for so much silver and gold, for ,so
much social respect, for a star on the breast
or a ribbon on the arm, or a horse at the door,
wherein does our righteousness differ from
that of the Scribes and Pharisees, which can
take no man into a kingdom of heaven }
True, these things may come, may be ex-
pected to come, under the general laws of

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 151

God; but in very various degree. We must
leave them to come in God's own time and
way. He who, in God's strength, looks every
day on the face of duty, and walks with her
along whatever paths her sacred feet may
tread, has in his own spirit, in his own char-
acter, what soon or late will blossom out into
all beauty and grandeur ; what will in the end
become " glory, honour, and immortality."

IL

The next lesson is just the opposite of this,
viz., " How certainly a bad man must be over-
taken and punished ! " We say " how cer-
tainly " because there is in his badness the
root and element of the retribution, and often,
without knowing it, he carefully develops
and ripens by his own action the retribution
that falls on his head. It is he who treasures
up wrath against the day of wrath. It is not
that there is a watching God with lightnings
sleeping all about his throne, and thunder-
bolts ever ready to his hand. It is rather
that evil brings its own penalty, that
passion bears its own punishment, and that

152 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

that punishment often comes along the very-
line or channel which some particular passion
had elaborately prepared for its own gratifica-
tion. Yet here again, as in the opposite case,
let no one expect that in any particular in-
stance there shall be in providence conspicuous
judgment, and that where such judgment
does not come, there is either no wickedness
to be punished, or, an escape of that wicked-
ness from the penalties that ought to alight
upon it. No thought could be more shallow
or untrue. Impunity } There is none in
working evil, or in being evil. Oh, it is not
Haman's open disgrace in being lacquey to
the man he despised — it is not even the
gallows fifty cubits high, on which we know
he will hang, that constitutes his sorest pun-
ishment. It is the deadened sensibility,
the seared and withered heart, the victorious
selfishness, the passions " set on fire of hell,"
and burning in the breast until no tender
precious thing can live — it is a state of things
like this which makes the deepest darkest
doom, a doom from which only God's great
grace can deliver a man when he begins to
sink into it. For —

THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 153

IIL

there is an increscent power in evil (as indeed
there is also in good), in view of which we can-
not be too watchful and anxious, lest by any
means we should fall under the power of it.
The power of it, remember, is very silent and
gentle, generally, in its operations. The use
of strong metaphors to signify the growth of
evil is apt to mislead and deceive us. And
the contemplation of very strong human in-
stances like this of Haman is apt enough to
have the same effect. The growth of evil —
Do not figure it by the waters of Niagara,
hurrying down the rapids, and plunging over
the brink in ocean fulness. Take rather a
plant or slender tree in your garden, which
has just begun to grow. There it stands in
the morning sunlight. There it stands in the
evening dew. It never travels, never plunges,
never roars. It is growing — and that is
enough. So do not look at Haman reeling
on the giddy eminence he is trying to scale,
and falling thence, as Satan did from heaven.
But look at a man growing up in perfect
quietness, who has no care to grow up in real

154 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

goodness, no fear of growing up in evil — and
there you have the picture, which would be
to us, if we could see things as they are, as
alarming as any other. Anything may
come out of that — Haman, Ahitophel, Judas
Iscariot.

Here is the strength, and here is the
fitness of the gospel, and here its inestimable
preciousness — that it goes to the root of all
evil in man. It is a regeneration, a renewing,
a quickening, a redemption; when it comes in
power it is death to the principle of evil
within — considered as the reigning power of
the life. " We are crucified with Christ ; "
and with Christ we attain to " the resurrection
of the dead." O happy change that puts us
for ever on the winning side ; that gives us
the pledge and assurance of eternal victory
by the attainment of eternal goodness. Is it
wonderful that we should exhort sinful men
to flee to Him, and to trust Him to the
uttermost ? In Him we are in the undecay-
ing strength — in the perfect purity — in the
infinite love — and therefore in the eternal
blessedness.

LECTURE VIII.

From Chapter VI, Verse xii. to end of Chapter VII.
ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET.

E now follow the footsteps of the
two men — Mordecai and Haman,
as each takes his own way at the
close of the triumphal progress through the
city. All that is told us of Mordecai, is that
" he came again to the king's gate!' But how
much is in that ! How clearly the character
of the man comes out in that single touch of
description — that one item of information
given us, that he came again to the king's
gate. A proud ambitious man would have
said to himself, " No more of the king's gate
for me ! I shall direct my steps now to the
king's palace, and hold myself ready for
honour, office, emolument, which surely must

156 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

now be at hand." Mordecai seems to have
said with himself, "7/ these things are
designed for me in God's good providence,
they will find me. But they must seek me,
for I shall not seek them. Those who confer
them know my address. ' Mordecai, at the
king's gate,' will still find me. Let the
crowd wonder and disperse. I have had
enough of their incense. Let Haman go
whither he will, he is in the hands of the
Lord. Let my friends at home wait ; they
will hear all in time. It is as yet no day of
triumph for them or me. That dark cloud
of peril yet hovers over us both. We must
wait. I can wait best at the old place and
in the accustomed way — ' at the king's gate' "

As for Haman — as soon as the ceremony
is over he hastens to his house, mourning,
and with covered head. The covered head
is the appropriate symbol and expression of
the deepest grief and trouble.

What a company was that which David
led out of Jerusalem when he fled from his
son Absalom in the conspiracy ! " David
went up," we read, " by the ascent of Mount
Olivet, and ivept as he went up, and had his

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 157

head covered, and he went barefoot : and all
the people that were with him, covered every
man his head, and they went up, weeping as
they went up ! " The sorrow of that com-
pany, however, was but, as it were, for a
night, and joy came to them in the morning.
Haman's sorrow is of a darker kind, and alas,
will grow darker still, and deepen for him into
the night of death. He is soon home, and
soon pours out the tale of his grief to his
listening wife and to his many friends. " He
told them all that had befallen him I " Well,
it really was not in itself very much. " All
that had befallen him " that morning would
to many a one have been only an honour,
and to himself, if he had been just and humble,
it would have been no disgrace. But a man's
character gives character to all that befalls
him. Things are this, or that, as the man is.
As the man is, especially, so will be his house.
It may be rest to him and refreshing, and joy
— in one word it may be " home " — or, it may
be, what, alas ! Haman's is, flattery, and false-
hood, and beguilement, in the days of evil pro-
sperity— and then frost, and winter, and dark-
ness, and judgment, when adversity draws on.

158 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

Now, if ever, surely is the time for Zeresh
to be ' the woman and the wife ! and for
the friends whom Haman has honoured and
feasted to show themselves friendly ! And
we cannot help some emotion of repugnance
and even contempt for them, when we see
how ready they are to veer round with the
shifting wind ; and how easily, and without
one manly effort to arrest the course of
things, they can give up the falling man to
destruction. Their behaviour, however, is
not wholly accounted for by meanness. It
is in part the fruit of superstition. The
omens had changed. Right and wrong,
cruelty and kindness — those were not the
things which guided and warned them. They
had been guided by the auspices, by the
king's smile, by the growing influence, and
honour, and wealth of their chief, and when
these are changed, all is changed. The fates
are changing — the gods are changing. Very
ungodly people are sometimes very supersti-
tious. And yet perhaps their belief now ex-
pressed, that Haman cannot prevail against one
who is of the seed of the Jews, is not wholly
superstitious. Indeed it is a perfectly rational

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 159

and devout belief when held for its own proper
reasons. But as held by them^ it was almost
purely superstitious. They evidently thought,
for a while, that this man had got the upper
hand of the Jewish people, and of everything
that might be called the Jewish providence.
And now in an hour all is changed, and the
God of the Jews, and they as His favoured
people are, in their judgment, invincible.
But why did they not call this to mind
before, so far, at least, as to warn their
master against rash and impious opposition
to them, and against the framing of that
inhuman edict for their destruction }

Still, although we may despise the wife
and the friends, we cannot say that by their
counsel now they do Haman any injustice.
They do not render him the highest service.
The highest service would be to tell him the
truth, and help him to conform to it by con-
fession, repentance, and amendment. (If they
had been even worldly wise, they would have
told him at once to take down the gallows.)
But they do him no injustice. The poor
man (for now pity begins to rise) has been
sowing diligently, and he is now to reap as

i6o THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

he has sown. Black harvest comes in a day.
It begins to come in his own house. There
— where he had plotted the mischief, begins
to fall the shadow of doom.

Yet, let us not overdraw the picture ;
possibly, if we knew all, there are softer lines
to put into it, and some lights of human
kindness. There is always much untold and
unknown in these histories. Did they follow
up their confident prediction that ; he could
not succeed against Mordecai and the Jews,
by earnest friendly counsel to Haman to
conceal himself, or at once to take flight out
of the Empire, or away to some distant part
of it .'* We know not. We know only that
they were still talking with him — talking
over the whole matter — the gathering dangers,
the possible methods of relief — when the
conference is interrupted by the entrance of
the king's chamberlains, who have come, in
haste, to bring Haman to the banquet that
Esther had again prepared.

That banquet, when they have come to it,
is the banquet of yesterday repeated, exactly.
Outwardly the scene is the same without any
change — the same room or* hall! the same

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. i6i

royal couches ! Hainan's rich mat spread on
the floor ! the lords in waiting, the obsequi-
ous attendants ! The feast too is the same.
But how changed is one of the company !
Inwardly how much changed ! Outwardly,
perhaps not much, for he had the power of
hiding and repressing feeling, and he would
still Jiope^ no doubt, to work himself by his
great skill out of the danger. He had no
idea that it was so tremendous, that it was so
near ! He knew not — even the king did not
know — that the queen was a Jewess, and that
in the vile plot which he had hatched he had
made the king sign away his own queen's life.
The feast goes on as yesterday, and about
the same time in the evening, perhaps a little
sooner, for the king, after the sleepless night,
and what has come of it to Mordecai, is eager
and anxious, and fully resolved to fathom
without further delay what mystery there
might be in the queen's silence. He puts
once more the question of yesterday, and in
the same words, " What is thy petition. Queen
Esther } and it shall be granted thee ; and
what is thy request } and it shall be per-
formed, even to the half of the kingdom."
M

i62 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

It may well be that for a moment the
shadow of fear fell upon the queen's heart ;
but in the next moment it was gone, and she
spake, briefly, but clearly, and, no doubt, with
the earnestness and intensity befitting the
case. " Let my life be given me at my
petition, and my people at my request ; for
we are sold — not for bondmen and bond-
women, for that I had held my tongue, and
even, if need were, gone with my people into
slavery — but sold to black death — to be
destroyed, to be slain, to perish !" Rapidly
the thoughts pass through the king's mind.
Even while the queen is yet speaking he is
thinking : — " Sold to death ? Thy people,
and tJwtt^ my queen, nearer to me and dearer
than any other ? The sword that hangs thus
over thee must hang also over me. If thy
Hfe is sold, can mine be safe V And then in
kingly wrath he speaks. " Who is he, and
where is he, that durst presume in his heart
to do so?" And then the queen — "The
adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman !"
Now the arrow has sped to the mark, and,
quivering through Haman's inmost sensibili-
ties, lies deep infixed in his heart. " He was

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 163

afraid before the king and the queen."
Apparently he manifested his fear — perhaps
stood trembhng before them. Very cruel
people are sometimes very cowardly. Judge
Jeffreys could go through his black assize in
the West of England, the terror of the land,
manifesting the fury of a wild beast ; but when
the tide turned, and he saw nothing before
him but ignominy and disgrace, he sank into
a state of abject fear which was pitiable to
see. " Haman was afraid before the king and
the queen !" As he well may be. It is an
awful moment. His life trembles in the
balance. If the king keeps his couch he may
be spared. If he rises up abruptly, and with-
draws, he is doomed. The king's retirement
is like passing solemn judgment. The cus-
tom has descended to our times, and the
Shah of Persia — the modern Ahasuerus — or
if not he, certainly some of his immediate
predecessors have condemned men to death
in this way. " Then the king, arising from
the banquet of wine in his wrath, went into
the palace garden." Haman ! thou art gone !
No earthly power can save thee now unless
it be that of the queen. True, it is by her

i64 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

means that the judgment has come, and come
so swiftly ; but she is a woman. She will
have mercy ! Now that the danger is rolled
away from herself, and probably is about to
be rolled away from her people, she may pity
even the originator of the intended tragedy.
As the king arises from his golden couch
Haman also springs up from his mat on the
floor, and stands up to make request for his
life to the queen. Skin for skin ; all that a
man hath will he give for his life — his manli-
ness, his courage, his very shame ! What a
picture of terror and misery ! With pallid
face, and bloodless lips, and trembling knees,
and supplicating gesture, he entreats his life ;
and then in the agony of his passion he falls
on his knees, stretching out his beseeching
hands towards the queen's couch, when the
king returning at that moment from the
garden into the house, still wrathful, it would
seem almost more indignant than when he
went out, the fire of his rage burning the
more hotly the more he mused on the circum-
stances of the case — returning now at the
moment when Haman threw himself at the
queen's feet, he was inflamed still more by

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 165

beholding him. Not that he really thought
him guilty in what it suited his object to
impute to him ; but he evidently wished now
to hasten the end. The officers would have
covered his face when the king rose and went
into the garden, for that was the signal of
evil determined. It was like the black cap in
which the judge pronounces sentence of
death. But they waited to see whether the
queen would intercede for the sparing of his
life. There is no more hope now. They
cover his face, and wait the king's pleasure.

One of the chamberlains, Harbonah, stood
by. He had been to Haman's house not
more than two hours ago to fetch him to the
banquet. He had there seen the gallows, or
cross, fifty cubits high, prepared and standing
ready for Mordecai. It was perhaps in some
degree natural therefore that he should men-
tion the circumstance. But how like the
true courtier he is, whose business it is to
shift and set the sails to all the changes of
the wind — to comply with the king's mood
to whatever it may tend. Says an old com-
mentator, " If Harbonah spake this out of
hatred of Haman's insolency, and in favour

i66 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

of Mordecai's innocency and loyalty, he de-
served commendation." W.ell, no, we think
not. Hardly on any supposition does this
suggestion of his look well. It is impossible
to make it much less than mean. It had
been better for thee, Harbonah, to have kept
silence that day. For now thou hast made
thyself known in history to all time as a
helper of the hangman. " Nothing can be
more fit," said the king; "hang him thereon."
" So they hanged Haman on the gallows," or
cross, " that he had prepared for Mordecai,
and the king's wrath was pacified."

Now again we shall try to set forth in
distinctness some of the moral instruction
contained in the passage, and some of the
more express lessons, just as they emerge in
the narrative.

I.

We see the great importance of capable
and prudent management of things. Esther's
management of these great affairs is evidently
consummate. She is acting no doubt through-
out under Mordecai's advice — better still, she

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 167

is surely, more or less consciously, under the
infallible guidance of the good providence of
God. But these things do not supersede her
own thought. This woman is, in the human
sense, acting out her own plan ; and from the
great results, we see how exceedingly wise
and well arranged it had been. It is chiefly
by the results that we make this judgment.
I question if the plan itself in all its parts,
even now, commends itself to our prudential
judgment. Nine persons out of ten would
say, " When Esther tells the king, let Haman
be absent." To tell him in his presence,
after having made special provision that he
should be present, is a bolder, grander policy
perhaps ; but it is more critical, and depends
more on every thing being done at the right
time, and in the right temper. Yet, as the
result proves, it is the best ; and the best is
chosen, and steadily adhered to. We are
bound always to take the best plan — the best
plan of life on the whole, as far as it may lie
within our own choice ; the best course
through each separate scene ; the best way
of doing each several duty. We have no
right to act in an aimless and indolent man-

i68 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

ner, and then expect all our negligences and
slips to be made up and corrected by an
overruling providence. There is an over-
ruling providence, but there is also a teaching
wisdom of God, and if we wish to be fully
under the protections of the one, we must
open all our faculties to receive the instruc-
tions of the other.

II.

We have in Esther's behaviour a very
notable and noble instance of calm and
courageous action in strict conformity with
the predetermined plan. How few women
are born into the world who cotcld go through
these scenes as Esther does ! How many
would faint through fear ! How many would
be carried by excitement into a premature
disclosure of the secret ! How many would
be under continual temptation to change the
plan ! Only a select few can be calm and
strong in critical circumstances, patient and
yet intense, prudent and yet resolved. Her
action furnishes what it is usual now to call
a model, after which we all, and especially

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 169

good women, may strive. Esther is by no
means, in our view, the ideal woman on the
whole. There are finer women sketched in
Scripture than she, and far finer are imagin-
able. But hardly anything finer is conceiv-
able than the admirable balance and adjust-
ment of various qualities in this great historical
scene. Her behaviour is quite a study, and
conformity to it — in the spirit of course, and
not in the letter merely — ought to take us
so far towards human perfection.

ni.

One thing more we must notice. Her
boldness takes here a form which it has not
before assumed : it is shown in the denuncia-
tion of a particular person : " The adversary
and enemy is this wicked Haman." Strong
language ; but, at any rate, it is open and
honest, and above-board — no whispering into
the king's private ear ; no secret plotting to
supplant the Prime Minister. Every word is
uttered in the man's hearing, and to his face.
Let him deny, if he can ; let him explain, if
he can. Let him answer. This much cour-

I70 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

tesy and justice is shown even to a notoriously-
bad man, and in the old heathen time. Then,
surely, no Christian will ever strike at other
Christians in the dark, whisper against a
neighbour's reputation, set suspicions afloat
which he himself has no power to recall, and
which, although in some instances they may
be harmless, because those against whom they
are directed may be strong enough to throw
them off, yet, in other instances, may do irre-
parable injury. But the deepest injury of all
is done to the manhood, the conscience, to
the sensibility, the self-respect, of those who
fall into such dark ways. I would a thou-
sand and a thousand times rather be the suf-
ferer in such slanders than the perpetrator of
them. Here is our law : " Let all bitterness,
and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-
speaking, be put away from you, with all
malice" (Paul). " Wherefore, laying aside all
malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and
envies, and all evil-speakings, as new-born
babes desire the sincere milk of the word,
that ye may grow thereby " (Peter).

It is not to be denied, however, that strong
words do need sometimes to be spoken, even

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 171

by Christians, to each other, or by one man
to another. And here, in Esther's denuncia-
tion of Haman to his face, we have what I
find some of the commentators regard as a
good instance of courageous faithfulness which
we shall do well to imitate. Yes, in the like
circumstances, if ever we are placed in them.
But how seldom is that likely to be ! If a
man is, like Haman, rapacious, perfidious,
cruel, malignant, inhuman, he may be per-
sonally denounced. But, happily, such mon-
sters are rare ; while it is by no means rare
to find wrong-doing among men who stand
in various relations to each other. Now, in
regard to the treatment of all such matters
on which there may be differences of opinion
among men equally sincere, in which men
may make mistakes in action without any con-
scious inward swerving in principle, Esther's
example is not to be followed. It is not
suitable to the case. Whatever seems wrong
to any Christian conscience (every man, of
course, guided by the light of Ids oivn con-
science) ought to be called what it seems.
It is a spurious charity that would throw a
mantle over wrong. Christians must be told

172 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

of their faults, like other people — even more
than other people.

But in all ordinary instances and circum-
stances the only safe rule is this — to point out
clearly and faithfully the error or the wrong
{i.e. the things which seein so to the person
pointing them out), but to abstain religiously
not only from personal denunciation, but from
judgments of personal character even, and
from any intrusion into the realm of motive,
into which only the eye of Omniscience can
look. Surely, Christian brethren, there is a very
clear distinction between those two things —
between describing and condemning, it may
be in strong language even, what seems to us
wrong and mischievous in action, and taking
a living man and putting him into our scales,
that we may try and tell out the weight of his
character. The one of those things we can
do ; the other we can not do, and it can only
injure us to try to do it. There are some
things which I could safely and confidently
describe in very strong language as inexpres-
sibly mean and cowardly ; but I shouldn't like
to permit myself to think, even to myself,
none but myself knowing the thought, that

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 173

those who do such things are mean and
cowardly persons through and through —
rather I am bound to think that they may
have done wrong without consideration, as
one who scatters firebrands and says, "Am
not I in sport ?" or from a misguided gener-
ous impulse, or through misinformation, and
that deep regret may come some day and fill
their hearts with sorrow. In one word, I am
bound to hold fast in all fortunes and at all
hazards that heavenly charity which "beareth
all things, believeth all things, hopeth all
things, endureth all things."

IV.

Well, if we are to think so charitably of
the living, and make every generous supposi-
tion, and every possible allowance with a view
to any just modification of their guilt, even
when, as in some few instances, we are haunted
by the idea that they are really very bad
people, and that their whole conduct and
character are without excuse — if still, I say,
our only true and safe rule is the rule 01
charity — then what about the dead ? What

174 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

about bad men when they die ? What about
this sad Haman ? The question is quite per-
tinent ; for here is the mortal part of him,
hanging, as it were, in our sight, not taken
down from the gallows yet. Where has the
inner, real Haman gone — the dark, proud,
active, malignant, implacable spirit that ani-
mated the now tenantless clay } What has
become of him ; what is he doing, suffering,
dreading } The real answer to these ques-
tions, and to all such like questions, if we
would be perfectly honest with ourselves, is
this : We do not know. We know so far, and
then comes the mystery and the darkness
through which we see not. That such a man
can have gone to heaven, — that is impossible ;
unless we are to believe that God governs the
world and the universe insincerely, and by
freaks of moral despotism and surprise. That
he has gone to hell would seem to be certain ;
and chiefly for this reason, that he has taken
hell with him. The unsubdued will, the reck-
less ambition, the pride that scorches every
gentle thing within the heart where it dwells,
the hatred that btu^iis where it throbs : how
can a man but be in hell with such things as

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 175

these in the breast — the earth having sHpped
away from under him, her pleasures, her dig-
nities, her pursuits, her changes, all over and
gone ?

But — but, if to the living Haman, bad as
he is or seems, utterly, we are to be — while
hating and condemning and denouncing his
bad actions and his bad inner qualities as far
as they are displayed — if we are yet to be,
what God is to us all, charitable and merciful,
then surely we are not to be less so to the
man when he is dead.

He has died^ and made, not any meritorious
atonement, but in the natural sense he has
paid the price and made atonement to society
for the evil of his life. Then his dead form
shall be as sacred to me as if it lay in a coffin
wrapt in a costly winding-sheet, and anointed
with sweet spices, while friends stand weeping
beside the bier. If there be none to weep
to-day, if his friends have all fled away in
shame or terror, there is the less need for my
scorn or condemnation ; there is the more need
for what reverence I can feel in the presence
of death, for what pity I can legitimately
cherish for one who must have had a great

176 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

inheritance of natural ability and yet has
brought it all to this shipwreck of an un-
timely end. He has died thus in disgrace and
shame ; he who might have lived so well !
What might have been — ah ! what might have
been ? It will do us good to think of it for
a moment That dark but intellectual face
might have worn the smiles of benevolence ;
those fingers which wrote death-edicts to
spread terror through the land, and gathered
and clutched at the gold and silver as though
man's eternal happiness lay in them, might
have been busy these many years in writings
and labours of helpful kindness to a whole
kingdom ; and that heart that has just ceased
to beat, or rather the spiritual heart within,
might have given pulse and sway to many a
noble purpose. It might have been ; it might
have been ! A great preacher of the sixteenth
century, who became martyr in the reign of
Mary, used to say as he saw the hurdle pass
bearing some poor doomed wretch to Tyburn,
" There goes John Bradford (himself) but for
the grace of God !" Yes, standing beside the
saintliest death-bed one may profitably think
how these feet, which are about to walk on

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 177

the high places of heaven, viigJit have slipped
and gone the other way; and, standing beside
the darkest cross, one may think how the poor
outcast who hangs on it, detected, scorned,
and crucified, might have had the saintliest
death, and been crowned with glory, honour,
and immortality. " Let him that thinketh he
standeth take heed lest he fall ;" and let him
that standeth in grace beside one who has
fallen be gentle, and merciful, and leave all
judgment to the righteous and ever-merciful
God.

But is not this something like tampering
with moral distinctions } No. Not in the
least. The dark lessons of Haman's life re-
main the same. This man is taken in red-
handed guilt. He is caught in the net he was
spreading, falls into the pit his own hands had
dug, and deserves to die as clearly as any one
ever did, if violent death by law is justifi-
able at all. And who can but see in his fall
the punishment of pride, the mockery of un-
principled ambition, the home-coming swing
of malignant schemes intended to injure
others } Who can fail to see the futility of
race-hatreds — such as hatred of Russians or
N

178 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

hatred of Turks — and how God in his pro-
vidence often works against such hatreds and
defeats them, giving every people some oppor-
tunity and chance, even as every man ? Who
can fail to see that the doom of a wicked
and cruel selfishness, like that of Haman, is
a black and bitter doom when it comes ? The
moral lessons from such a life are clear
enough, and incontestible. And we can have
them all without parting from those sweet
companions, gentle pity and heavenly charity.
Above all, we surely are able to read and
learn such lessons as these, without encroach-
ing on divine prerogative, without professing
a belief in things which God has not revealed,
and which, even intellectually, we cannot
fully comprehend.

" If thine enemy hunger, feed him. If
he thirst, give him drink," — and if, by the
laws of society he must be hanged, at least
by no human mortal lips let him be damned.
Leave him to the judgments of the Holy
One. Leave him to the mercies of the All-
Merciful.

ESTHER'S SECOND BANQUET. 179

V.

You all know what far other associations
we have with a cross. You know how this
symbol of guilt and shame has been changed
and glorified, so as symbol never was before.
Mordecai had the cross erected for him but
he escaped it, and Haman himself had to
enact the part.

The great " Adversary," the Haman of all
ages and all countries, plotted with evil men
for the death of the righteous One, and He
accepted the issue. He died on the cross,
that He might be able to save all men with
crucified reputations, and crucified hearts,
sinners whom no one would pity or touch.

Ah, but you say the devil at least gained
the outward triumph .? Yes, but no more
than outward. Christ made the cross really
a throne of glory and a chariot of triumph.
Satan himself was overcome and spiritually
crucified in and by the cross he had raised
for Jesus. " By death Christ destroyed him
that had the power of death, that is the devil,
and delivered them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

LECTURE IX.

Chapter VIII., Verses i. to vii.

ESTHER GOING IN TO THE KING TO MAKE
REQUEST FOR HER PEOPLE.

HE evil that men do lives after
them." That is certain, whether
EJ or no it be true that " the good is
oft interred with their bones." The partiadai-
evil which Haman had wrought during the
time that has passed before us in this history
could hardly be said to be made any less by
his own departure out of the world. It lay,
as we know, in a diabolical plot for the
destruction of a whole people, which he had
hatched in his own dark brain and malignant
heart, and to which, in an evil hour, by his
persuasive acts, he had obtained the king's

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. i8i

consent and seal. It would almost appear
that the king did not really know what he
was doing. In some cunning way the case
in its bare and dreadful reality was kept from
his knowledge — else how could he with so
much indignation and surprise exclaim when
Esther reveals to him the deadly plot,
" Who is he, and where is he, that durst
presume in his heart to do so ? " Well, he
who presumed in his heart to do so has met
the reward of his deeds now, and has gone to
his own place ; but his deeds remain ; and
especially the chief deed of his last days
remains, in such a form, that if nothing be
done for the abolition or the counteraction of
the deadly edict, there will be such scenes of
terror and blood, such massacre and murder
throughout the Empire, wrought upon an
innocent and defenceless people, as will be
almost enough to give Haman a sense of
revenge in his grave ! Now let us see what
in these circumstances was done by the king,
by Mordecai, by Esther ; and how the char-
acter of each comes out in what they did.

1 82 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

What the king did. When a traitor
or a great culprit like Haman dies, he forfeits
all his estates and possessions to the crown.
This has been the law in nearly every country,
and was likely to be so in its most rigorous
form in Persia. It is a hard rough law,
and, quite possibly, at least in certain
instances, it is full of injustice and unkindness
to the children. They might be loyal, and
patriotic, and humane. But no chance is
given them. The shadow of the cross must
darken Raman's home for ever, i.e. as long
as it is a home. Those who have not sinned
must suffer. Nay — as has often happened
here in England, as elsewhere, the children of
fathers who suffered — not for doing wrong,
but for doing nobly, have the stigma put
upon them by the despotic authority, just as
if they themselves had done wrong. This
race-law, as applied by men, is terrible.

Well, the first thing the king did (and it
was done promptly, on the very day of
Raman's death) was to " give the house of
Raman, the Jews' enemy, to Esther the queen."

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 183

" The house of Haman " means all that he
had. He had talked to his wife and his
friends of " the glory of his riches," which
must therefore have been great. They are
all handed over in royal gift to Esther. And
" the ring " which Haman had worn, which
the king had presented to him — taking it
from his own royal hand to do so, and which
had been taken from Haman before his death,
by the chamberlain, and brought again to
the king — that ring the king again took from
his royal hand, and presented it, this time to
a worthier custodian — to Mordecai, who had
already saved his life, and who has been all
through this business displaying a silent but
masterly ability in the management of affairs.
On this account, and also because the queen
just at this juncture revealed to the king the
relationship existing between Mordecai and
herself — Mordecai "came before the king."
He came evidently because he was sent for.
The king has been told now of all his kind-
ness to the orphan girl left in his care ; how
he has brought her up as his own child ; how
he has sanctioned and advised all the steps
she has taken in her life. The king himself

i84 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

knows, and would remember with a new
vividness at this time, how he had been be-
holden to him for his own life, which, but for
Mordecai's intelligence and fidelity, would
have been sacrificed in a plot to the wrath of
Bigthan and Teresh, the two chamberlains.
The king thinks : — He is able: he is faithful :
he has had experience : he is calm and brave
and not to be turned aside from the path of
duty : he is closely related to the queen, who
has acted so worthily of her great rank and
office : and who, apart from her own love to
me, which seems to be most sincere, can have
no motive to seek anything but my safety
and the welfare of the Empire. Who then
so fit to wear the chief dignity, to fill the
vacant office, to lift and use the suspended
power — as he t " Mordecai, I promote thee,
as I promoted Haman the son of Hamme-
detha the Agagite. I advance thee as I
advanced him ; and set thy seat, as I set
his seat, above all the princes. And all my
servants shall bow before thee and do thee
reverence. Be my prime minister ; and take
the ring which will be the visible symbol to
others of the honour and of the office to

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 185

which thou art now raised." The forfeited
estate to Esther — the vacant office to Mor-
decai — to the one the riches, and what glory
may come with them ! — to the other, the
power and what good uses may be made
of it.

And so the king has done his part, and
has done it royally, and like a king. And it
does not seem to strike him that there is any-
thing else to do. It is so easy for kings,
without being wicked or tyrannical, and for
those in high social rank, without being of
evil disposition, to take only the grand view
of things, or the view that naturally and
habitually presents itself to them, and to forget
altogether, or perhaps never even really know,
what common life is, and what the needs
are, and what the thoughts, and what the
dangers, of the great masses of their fellow-
creatures who are living and dying around
them. Then is this all thou hast to do, O
king, in the present emergency, and as re-
sponsible to the King of kings 1 Hast thou
forgotten that night, not so long ago, when
" the king and Haman sat down to drink,"
while "perplexity" prevailed in the city

i86 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

around them, and " the posts," hastened by
the king's commandment, sped on to far
provinces, weighted with the black message of
death. Hast thou never, on any day since
then, thought for one serious moment of the
horror and consternation which would seize
on the Jewish communities of the different
cities when the heavy tidings came to them ?
Hast thou never pictured, in imagination, the
anguish of the Jewish household, and the
silent misery of individual hearts — fathers
looking ruthfully upon stalwart sons, mothers
clasping doomed infants and little children to
their breasts ? Nay ; these are not thoughts
for a king ! they are not thoughts, at least,
for a king like thee. Thou canst be in a
rage at wickedness which thine own hand
hath wrought. Thou canst hang thy partner
in the crime on his cross of shame, divesting
him of all his dignities and wealth. Having
offered such a sacrifice to justice, thou canst
deign to let it be known, so that it may be
chronicled to all ages that ' the king's wrath
is pacified,' and then thou canst distribute
gift, and largess, and honour, and power, to
thy queen and thy new prime minister, and

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 187

then, after banqueting, thou canst go to
thy kingly couch, for what one knows, with
the quiet mind of one who thinks he has
done virtuously, and in the records of the
empire it may somewhere be written, ' On
that night coitld the king sleep — soundly and
well, and next morning he awoke refreshed.'
So much for the king and his part in this
crisis of affairs.

IL

Now let us look at what is done by Mor-
decai. As far as the words of the passage
go, he seems to do little or nothing — nothing
actively ; he seems entirely passive. But this
is far from being the case. He is a silent
man, and unobtrusive. He seems to have no
ambitions, except such as would advance the
interests of his own countrymen while not
injuring those of the country in which he
dwells ; but he is sleeplessly vigilant con-
cerning all that is taking place, and in quiet,
unseen ways is really directing, as far as
one man may, the whole course of the
history.

i88 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

If it be said that there is no sufficient
evidence of this in the narrative, the answer
is, that evidence to this effect is all summed
up in the simple fact of his appointment to
the premiership of the greatest country in the
world. This king is vain, and proud, and
selfish, and heartless — but he is not a fool.
And it would be folly of the highest and
most mischievous kind to put an incompetent
stranger at the head of his vast affairs.
Some way or other Mordecai has shown, and
the king has noted, his possession of the
qualities that fit him for the great place. In
these all-important transactions, as it seems
to us, Mordecai is the chief power, although
Esther is the chief actor. We do not hint
that she hath not her own full share of merit,
and that share a large one. But it seems to
us all but certain that, in all her actions and
behaviour at this time, she is carrying out
the plan of another — her foster-father, her
friend beyond all friends. As we read the
verses we cannot but feel his firm, silent
presence. No doubt it is he who decides at
what time Esther shall make known to the
king his, Mordecai's, relationship to her.

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 189

" To everything there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heavens." To do
a thing, a good thing, at the wrong time, is
sometimes worse than not doing it at all.
If it is done too soon — the evil powers have
warning, opposing currents set in, and head
winds blow in the face of the good purpose,
and effort is in vain. If it is done too late,
then — although perhaps there are no contrary
winds, no strong currents to be stemmed, the
silent tide of time and circumstance has
turned, and the vessel of your purpose must
go with it If Esther had declared the secret
sooner, Raman would have known it, and
might have found some diabolical means of
destroying even the queen herself and all the
Jews. If she had declared it later, some one
else, meantime, might have got the ring of
office instead of Mordecai, for, as we have
already said, his relationship to the queen
certainly seems to have been one reason for
his appointment, and was probably even the
deciding one.

Yes, " to everything there is a season, and
a time to every purpose under the heavens :"
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.

I90 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

One says that " He that would be able to
speak wJieJi and as he ought, must first learn
silence as the Pythagoreans did of old." St.
Jerome saith, " Let us first learn not\.o speak,
that afterwards we may open our mouths to
speak wisely." Some one gives this as a
rule : — " Either keep silence, or give that
which is better than silence." It need not be
always supreme wisdom, or profound truth,
to be better than silence. After all, our
tongues have been given us at least for occa-
sional speech. The word of kindness is good.
The word of sympathy — even the smallest
word will be helpful if it comes in the right
time. But oh ! how important is it in the
great matters of life to speak in the right time
as Esther did ! and how all-important that
we should speak to the great King asking
His grace while yet it is the day of grace.
Blessed be His name, this is heaven's " time "
and " season " for all men. " Now ! " now is
the accepted time. " Now " — the tide is full,
but still flowing : turn your vessel, and glide
over the bar while you may. " Now " — the
gale is blowing gently and favourably ; spread
the sail of your purpose, and catch its favour-

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 191

ing breath, and haste away from breaker and
sandbank over the quiet seas to the realms
of sunshine. " Now " — the drawbridge is
down — enter the castle of safety. "Now"
— the door is open. Come in — for in no
long time a voice from within will say to
those who come knocking, " The door is
shut ! "

Now let us see the hand of this silent
masterful man in another thing — another
thing of " time and season." There can be
little doubt that it is he who decides, or at
any rate strongly suggests, that Esther shall
agairi go in before the king as a suppliant to
plead for her people. That the thought
never entered her mind until it was suggested,
it would be too much to say. Succeeding so
well in her first endeavour, it would be every
way natural for her to think of renewing it on
behalf of her people. But the right time for
doing so, we may be sure, would be fixed by
Mordecai, at any rate in consultation with him.
It is he who has the threads of the plan in
his hand. It is he who has the justly de-
liberating judgment, the accurately forecasting
eye, the patient temper, the unswerving will,

192 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

the ready hand, the silent tongue which grows
eloquent now and again only for the moment
when he has to say, " Nozv ! " " Do it now."

in.

Let Mordecai now retire for a little into
his congenial shade, while Esther comes for-
ward, and ventures, as before, into the kingly
presence to ask, if she is allowed, the reversal
of the edict against the Jews. The account
of the queen's entrance is more brief than on
the occasion of her former appearance. No
doubt, however, the form of the thing would
be much the same. The king would be on
the throne or seat of dignity for the con-
sideration and transaction of public affairs.
Esther's matter is not a thing to be talked
over in private between king and queen. It
is a thing which, alas ! has gone irrevocably
into public law, and must be' publicly re-
garded and settled. The king on the throne,
Esther, too, as before, would come in arrayed
in royal apparel, or " in her royalty," looking
her best — queenly in face and movement,
making no attempt to trick herself out in

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 193

meretricious charms, which one easily sup-
poses she knew she didn't need, but trusting
to the graces which never fail — simplicity,
modesty, dignity, directness, and attended, no
doubt, as a quaint old author says she was in
the former case, not by two maids, as Josephus
hath it, but by those three faithful com-
panions. Faith, Hope, and Charity, who
brought her off also with safety.

There are, however, differences between
this and her former audience well worthy of
being noted. On the first occasion she stood.
When the king saw her standing in the inner
court, immediately he held out the golden
sceptre. Now she falls down at his feet, and
beseeches him " with tears to put away the
mischief of Haman, the Agagite." The pro-
strate attitude of the queen now is assumed
to express the utmost lowliness and humility;
but at the same time it seems to express a
growing confidence in the king's clemency,
and possibly, also, a growing inward convic-
tion of her own influence over him, partly by
her own means and partly by the power and
character of him who now holds the great seal.
Yet the confidence is by no means complete,
O

194 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

else why should the "tears" come so quickly
from their fountains ? If she knew that what
she asks would be got simply for the asking,
there would be no tears ; there would be
hardly even the falling down at the king's
feet. No ; the request may be denied ; the
proud monarch may be unwilling to confess
himself mistaken and fallible, in his former
action. There may be legal difficulties in
setting edict against edict in a country where
the law is that no duly-enacted law can be
reversed. The clear reversal of the law she
knows she need not seek. Any enactment
coming short of this, and yet capable of
bringing something like the same effect, must
be difficult to find, and perhaps not easy
safely to promulgate. Therefore, with a pas-
sionate earnestness, bending at his feet, look-
ing, perhaps, timidly yet pathetically and im-
ploringly into his face ; weeping while she
speaks, yet continuing to speak while she
weeps ; touchingly, terribly different from the
queen he has never seen before except in her
smiles or in her grandeur, yet somehow fairer
in his eyes, and dearer to his better heart in
this burst of tragic eagerness, in this passion

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 195

of unselfish grief, than when queening it in
splendour with the king and Haman for
guests ; so she pleads, and he listens for a few
moments. He could not listen long. He
feels at once that this is a battle that must
quickly come to an end. A rain of hot fire
like this he has never been subject to before.
Whatever is done must be done quickly, and
what shall it be } In a dark fitful breast like
his some sudden gust of anger may arise.
Annoyed by being reminded, although only
delicately and incidentally, of his own share
in the fabrication of the edict of horror, and
fearful of plots from the other side by too
much favour shown to these Jews, he may
say, " Much as I have loved thee, O queen !
thou hast presumed to come forbidden into
my presence once too often ; thou shalt be
taken from it now — to die !" This was quite
possible. He did not require, indeed, to do
or say anything to bring this terrible issue.
If he remained impassive — simply not hold-
ing out the golden sceptre — those who covered
Haman's face were not far away, and their
supple, obsequious, ignominious hands were
ready, at the signal, to put a thicker veil over

ig6 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

Esther's face than that made by her own
escaping tresses, and to lead her quickly to
her doom.

But no ; " the king held out the golden
sceptre towards Esther," and the danger is
past as far as it affects herself; and with a
little more perseverance the safety of her
people also will be secured. The king held
out the golden sceptre, and the queen arose.
She had " humbled herself under the mighty
hand of God," as well as before her earthly
lord, and lo ! she is exalted in due season.
Never is the moon so beautiful as when she
escapes from the thick bank of envious cloud
which lay dark against her rising, and sails
into the clear blue of the open sky. " So
Esther arose and stood before the king ;"
stood, no doubt, as before, in her royalty, al-
though probably with lessening sense of it in
her own breast. She is thinking, now in-
creasingly and intensely, of the one all-import-
ant cause of her being here at all. She is
thinking, perhaps, " Twice my life has been
spared, yet soon it will not be worth keeping
if I cannot save the life of my people." " So
Esther arose and stood before the king- ;" and

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 1 97

either asked by him as before, "What is thy
petition, and what is thy request ?" or, receiv-
ing some sign that she may speak, immedi-
ately begins to plead.

The pleading is very skilful. In form it is
simple and inartistic, and apparently irregular,
yet in substance it would not be easy to
imagine a wiser or better putting of the case.
The fair advocate is full of self-deprecation
and self-distrust, and at the same time renders
ample reverence and honour to the king and
to the law. She seems almost to hesitate as
she speaks, almost to withdraw one phrase
that she may put the next in the stead of it,
if possibly it may be happier. " If it please
the king !" Nothing can be done against the
king's good pleasure. "And if I have found
favour in his sight." If the poor advocate is
not altogether unworthy of the cause she is
venturing to plead. "And the thing seem
right before the king ;" who, no doubt, will
do not only what pleases him, but what seems
" right" and best, guiding himself by many
royal considerations of which I, a woman,
must be ignorant. "And I be pleasing in his
sight" — "if it please the king ;" " and if I have

198 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

found favour in his sight ;" " and the thing
seem right before the king;" "and if I be
pleasing in his sight !" Ah ! Queen Esther,
we would not, after the noble things we have
seen in thee, and are yet to see, hastily or
easily impute to thee any insincerity of speech
or behaviour ; but surely thou hast some faint,
flitting idea, if not in thy queenly conscious-
ness, yet in thy deeper woman's heart, that
thou art — shall we say just a little ? — pleas-
ing to the king. Art thou altogether desti-
tute of a shrewd suspicion that it is the king's
pleasure in thee that has turned the scale once
and again in moments of tremendous crisis ;
and that, in fact, while indebted to Mordecai
for foresight, plan, direction, yet that, single-
handed thou hast been fighting this battle,
and art now well nigh finally winning it by
thy courage, thy beauty, and thy tears }

The climax of the queen's earnest, appeal-
ing prayer is reached in the 6th verse. There
is in it just perhaps a touch of the self-con-
sciousness of which we have spoken : " If I
be pleasing in the king's eyes, then let him
see to this matter without delay. All the
king's pleasure in me, as queen, will end as-

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 199

suredly with the falling of this judgment, if
it is permitted to fall. If my people die,
I must die with them. I cannot endure
to see their destruction." The feeling thus
begins, perhaps, in some little self-conscious-
ness, but it ends sublimely in self-sacrifice.
She realises to the full the terrible danger in
which they stand, the silent agony in which
they are waiting, even now, not knowing if
any relief can be found ; and she flings her-
self thus, with all the dignities and pleasures
of her life, in sincere self-abandonment, with
a patriotic affection as tender as it is strong,
between them and death. And the sacrifice
is effectual, and the prayer is heard and
answered without the least delay.

O queen, thou art victor now ! Thou art
ascending a higher and a holier throne than
that on which thou wast crowned on the day
of thine espousals. Thy great king was but
now holding forth to thee the golden sceptre
on which thy very life was hung, and thou
didst arise and stand as a weeping suppliant
before him. And lo ! now thou art 'waving
a far more powerful sceptre, albeit invisible,
over his head ! Thou art ruling him partly

200 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

by the power of womanly beauty and accom-
plishment over a fitful but susceptible nature,
but still more by the irresistible power of
moral earnestness, by the grandeur of patriot-
ism, and by the holy spell of self-sacrificing
love ! And soon the pens of the scribes will
be busy for thee, and the swift beasts will be
carrying thy message of life to distant pro-
vinces, and thy poor people far and near will
gratefully bless thy name.

In our humble judgment, this is the
sublimest part in Esther's life, as far as we
know it. This in which, having secured the
safety of her own life, she does not " count it
dear to herself," but ventures it all again in
an act of uncalculating self-sacrifice, telling
the king that what he has already given is
of no value to her unless he will also give the
life of her people.

Indeed there is no sublimity of human
character to equal that which is reached in
such a mood. Take the greatest men who
have lived, in their greatest moments, you
will find that either they are in this mood or
in one not far removed from it. Morally,
the grandest act in the life of Moses, to our

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 201

thinking, is not to be found on the granite
peaks of Sinai amid the thunders, and the
darkness, and the flames ; nor on Pisgah,
with the far-stretching land of promise lying
in light before him ; but when grieved, and
humbled, and disappointed with the idolatries
of the people, and yet clinging passionately
to them still, he threw himself before God
as their intercessor, crying, " Oh, this people
have sinned a great sin ; yet now, if thou wilt
forgive their sin, — and if not, blot me, I pray
Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast
written." If I fail in this, I fail in every-
thing. Life itself will hardly be desirable
any longer. If this people for whom I have
lived is to die, let me die with them, and let
us all be forgotten together.

David could sing with loud voice to the
praise of God. He could cry to Him in the
lonely wilderness, by night, until his voice
echoed among the rocks and hills. He could
fight at the head of the bravest. He could
sometimes magnanimously spare the life of
an enemy, even when, by sacrificing that life,
his own advancement would be promoted.
But among all the moods of his life, none,

202 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

probably, is really diviner than that which is
expressed in these words, written apparently
while his heart was melted, while his tears
were flowing — " Rivers of waters run down
mine eyes, because they keep not Thy law."

St. Paul, often great in this greatness, is
never more conspicuously so than when he
declares that he has " great heaviness and
continual sorrow in his heart," and that he
" could wish that himself were accursed from
Christ, for his brethren, his kinsmen according
to the flesh." Like Esther, his cry is, " How
can I endure to see the destruction of my
kindred ? " — only his meaning covers the
spiritual and the eternal, Esther's only affect-
ing this time-life.

But the rea//j/ perfectly sttblime of this con-
dition or state is found only in the Master,
who not only wished and desired the good of
all, and lived promoting it, but actually died
for us ; gave life for life, the just for the un-
just— redeemed us from the curse of the law
by being made a curse for us. Oh for a love
of race-kindred like that of Esther ; for a love
of country like that of David ; for a love of
souls like that of Christ !

ESTHER PLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE. 203

Now observe, in conclusion, that the prin-
ciples of noble action, and the affections, and
resolutions, and preferences corresponding to
them, are the same to us as they were to
Esther, although we are not, and never look
to be, in her pathetic and tragic circumstances.
But these tragic scenes in her life, in any life,
or in any part of history, are valuable to us,
and have spell and power over us, not because
they are exceptions tUterly to all ordinary con-
sciousness and experience of man, but because
they are intensified specimens and expres-
sions of our noblest and best. So we ought
to be living in our daily life — in principle
and spirit, in aim and purpose, in affection
and desire — rising above the mere circum-
stances of our life, and always seeking and
always finding its highest duties ; putting self
down from the high place she is always ready
to take ; seeking others' good not only with-
out hypocrisy and in real sincerity, but with
a passion of desire that will accept no denial,
that will burn up the difficulties that stand in
the way. If in our breast there lives any
purpose that has been wisely formed, that has
the good of others for its object — those in our

204 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

family, our neighbourhood, our nation — keep
we to that as to our hfe. It is the share we
have in the life of Christ ; and, like His, is
unconquerable, incorruptible, and immortal.

LECTURE X.

Chapter VIII. Verse 7 to the end.

JOY AND GLADNESS,
A FEAST AND A GOOD DAY.

E have come now to the chief or
last turning-point in this history.
We passed it at the close of the
last Lecture.

When the king the second time holds out
the golden sceptre to Esther, when he accepts
her and yields to her plea, not only is her own
life safe, for that had been given to her be-
fore, but the " life of her people," for which
she had made " request," is now assured.

As far as any assurance can be given, even
by the king ; for here, indeed, is a terrible
circumstance, that that edict of death pos-
sesses of necessity the dignity and inviola-
bility of any, of every decree of the great

2o6 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

Persian Empire. It cannot be reversed in
terms, yet since the practical reversal of it is
the thing sought, and is the thing which, in
substance and form, the king has consented
to grant as far as possible, some means, of
course, must be found of turning the edge
of the decree, and furnishing to the Jews
means of escape from it. What shall they
be ? The king treats the matter in his own
right royal fashion. Esther and Mordecai
stand before him, and he says, " Behold," as
you well know, " I have given Esther the
house of Haman," all the wealth he had
amassed, and his forfeited estate, " and him
they have hanged." He is gone for ever.
As to what remains, the preservation, the
safety of your people, " write ye also as it
liketh you." "As it liketh you!" Don't
trouble me with too many particulars. I am
a monarch, not a statesman. There are scribes,
there are wise men ; and thou, Mordecai, art
wise. "As it liketh you!" "As it liketh
you ;" only take care of this, that ye make
no attempt to repeal that which is unrepeal-
able, and that ye do not touch the dignity of
the Empire.

JOY AND GLADNESS. 207

Whether Mordecai took counsel with others
does not appear ; probably he is himself
chiefly responsible for the plan adopted, for
it is said that " the scribes wrote according to
all that Mordecai commanded." The resolu-
tion was the only one that could be taken.
Reversal of the decree being impossible, the
policy of resistance to it must be adopted.
The Jews are allowed to combine in self-de-
fence ; to defend themselves with weapons ot
war ; to assail those who meant to attack
them in the execution of the bloody decree ;
to assail them — not merely to parry the in-
tended blow, but to give the death-blow to the
assailants ; to " destroy," " kill," " cause to
perish;" to do this after the savage method
of nearly all the ancient warfare, without
showing mercy to women, or to children ; and
to take whatever spoil they might be able
thus to win.

This is in brief and for substance the famous
edict which Mordecai devised, and which was
solemnly enacted in the king's name, and
sealed with the king's ring. The decree was
given with all order and solemnity at Shushan,
the palace.

2o8 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

But to give it at Shushan, the palace, is
one thing ; to have it pubHshed, and read, and
known in the places where it will be most
needed, is another. This great Persian Em-
pire, remember, stretched from India to
Ethiopia, and contained an hundred and
twenty-seven provinces. These provinces
were peopled not by one race, or by a few,
but by a great many ; unto every people the
royal decrees were made known in their own
several language. The mere work of trans-
lation must have been one large department
of the state. The foreign office at Shushan
must have been at times a busy place, and no
doubt the scribes and learned men were greatly
respected, just as they are among ourselves
now. Translated thus, and sealed with the
ring in every language, the next thing is to
have it conveyed with all speed and safety to
these various and wide-lying places of desti-
nation. It will be a long time before it reaches
some of them ; but all the best means of loco-
motion at that time possessed were put into
use freely, and I do not know that there
would be very much difference in regard to
speed and certainty of travel between that

JOY AND GLADNESS. 209

time and this — I mean in that particular dis-
trict of the world. The animals they rode on
then for speed are the same swift and patient
creatures that are used in these countries now
— horses, mules, camels, young dromedaries.
Nor would the Persian roads of this day be
found better, if so good, as in that old time.
The edict seems to have reached every pro-
vince, without fail, and in time to enable the
Jews to concert among themselves the means
of defence against the day of danger when it
should arrive.

The decree was given in the month Sevan,
" the month of May," says an old author,
" when all things are in their prime and pride,
and the earth chequered and entrailed with
variety of flowers, and God is seen to be mag-
71US i7t minimis — great in the smallest crea-
tures. Then did the Sun of righteousness
arise to these afflicted exiles with healing in
his wings, like as the sunbeams did to the
dry and cold earth, calling out the herbs and
flowers, and healing those deformities that
winter had brought upon it."

When all this was done, and the edict of
life and hope to the Jews was on its way to
P

210 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

the provinces, a special honour was conferred
upon Mordecai. " He went out," we read,
" from the presence of the king in royal
apparel of blue and white, and with a great
crown of gold, and with a garment of fine
linen and purple." Not long ago he had
been gorgeously arrayed and led in triumphal
procession through the city. That, however,
was no more than a transient honour, speak-
ing very loudly of the king's favour for the
time, but not to be repeated. This investi-
ture is intended apparently to express, not
merely the high favour of the king resting
on Mordecai for the time, but his appoint-
ment also permanently to the now vacant
place of first counsellor of the king, first
practical ruler of the great empire. As the
people very well knew that the king did not
interfere much, scarcely indeed at all, in the
practical management of state affairs, and that
the power really was in the hands of a very
few, and most of all in the hands of the chief
or prime minister, we can easily see that it was
no slight thing to them when a neiv possessor
of the power came out from the king's pre-
sence. On wJiose head sits this crown of

JOY AND GLADNESS. 211

gold ? On whose shoulders hangs the rich
garment of fine linen and purple ? Who is
the wearer of the royal apparel of blue and
white ? These are questions of the deepest
interest for the citizens of Shushan, and for all
the citizens of the empire. We need not,
therefore, be surprised to be told in the same
verse that shows us Mordecai thus gorgeously
arrayed, that " the city of Shushan rejoiced
and was glad," nor to be told, in the next
verse, that " the Jews had light, and gladness,
and joy, and honour."

This is a book of contrasts. Almost every
character in the book passes from one extreme
of some kind to another. So does Mordecai.
Look at that man, at the centre of the city,
observed of all, clothed in sackcloth, ashes on
his head, casting himself on the ground in
the deepest trouble, and rending the air with
loud and bitter cries ! Look at this man
coming from the king's presence, splendid in
raiment, joyful in countenance. It is the
same man, and happily we can respect him
as much in the sackcloth as in the purple,
and as much in the purple as in the sack-
cloth. " Happy elevation," may we not say,

212 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

" which is thus immediately productive of
Might, and gladness, and joy, and honour' to
others." As, on the other hand, that is a
miserable advancement to any man which is
followed by jealousies, envyings, animosities,
bitter rivalries. It is not given, even to good
men, to escape these things always and
entirely. The world hated the perfect One,
and the world will not love His truest servants:
which means this essentially, that bad people
cannot love good people. But they respect
them, they fear them, and sometimes they may
be said almost to love them. As in the case be-
fore us, "many of the people of the land became
Jews ; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them."
We shall not now go farther in the story.
What remains of history can all be told in
the next Lecture. And meantime we shall
review what has passed before us, with an aim
to find any points of specific instruction
worthy of being considered by us.

I.

We can hardly fail to notice the well-
known peculiarity of the laws of the Medes

JOY AND GLADNESS. 213

and Persians — that they must stand for ever ;
and can in no circumstances be directly
repealed ! How presumptuous, and how ex-
tremely foolish such a law or principle seems
to us now ! And yet this Persian Empire
contained, at the time, within itself, a large
part of the world's civilisation. And they
seemed quite to glory in this — that no law
once enacted could ever be repealed. We say
" they seemed to glory in this." But it really
is hardly likely that the body of the people
ever did. The principle looks like a court-
born thing. It probably had a king for its
nursing-father, and a queen for its nursing-
mother. It is evidently intended to illustrate
the grandeur of royalty, which seems to reach
the height of its majesty when it sets its
seal to some decree and says, " That is for
ever." " For ever !" And yet, supposing it
even to be wise and just, and adapted to the
circumstances in which, and with a view to
which, it is enacted, can anything be more
certain than this, that in no long time circum-
stances will be altogether changed ; and the
decree, therefore, will be altogether unwise
and inapplicable } But it must not be touched !

214 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

The .truth is, we suppose, that laws in this way
were often evaded. They were forgotten.
They were not mentioned. They were practi-
cally repealed, as in the case we have on
hand, by the enactment of statutes quite
opposed in substance to them. But there
can be little doubt that this principle of their
law, taken in connection with the thoughts
and customs that would naturally gather
about it, would do its part in ruining the
Persian Empire.

Soon or late, all human infallibility, so
called, comes to grief. Political infallibility is
not now professed anywhere in the world.
No nation on the face of the earth is so
foolish as to put out such a creed. Yet in
these our own days there has been solemnly
decreed and declared for the first time, form-
ally at least, the infallibility of the sovereign
Pontiff — the Roman Catholic Bishop of
Rome. It is to superficial sight a strange
phenomenon of these latter days, although
there is much in the state of society, both in
regard to opinion and morals, to account for
it. Doubts, and uncertainties and unbeliefs,
have so advanced their claims as to create

JOY AND GLADNESS. 215

some alarm In devout and thoughtful hearts,
lest all certainty should vanish and all faith
should die out of the world. They are
neither the strongest minds nor the devoutest
hearts which have had the fear : but it has
prevailed — and great ecclesiastical persons,
some of them perhaps sharing in some slight
degree in the apprehension, have been quick
to see and seize the opportunity for advancing
the principle of human authority in religion
by securing the declaration of the personal
infallibility of the pope. That it is the
principle of authority generally, the power of
the priesthood in fact, which they have been
promoting, is evident from two considerations
at least — first that this personal infallibility
has never been exercised in any one specific
act or law. As a matter of fact, this is true
as we believe. There has been no declared
instance of the personal infallibility in regard
to anything whatever. They have been con-
tented to have the thing decreed and held as
a general faith. Then, secondly, they have
been able to enhance the urgency and per-
emptoriness of their counsels and their invita-
tions to a distracted world to come to the

2i6 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

place of true rest ; to the shadow of change-
less authority ; to the one infallibility in the
world. Nor can it be doubted that these
invitations have been welcome to some ; and
that they have been therefore to some extent
accepted. But the real effects of that decree
of infallibility have not yet begun to appear.
No human infallibility can prosper in the
end : the spiritual, perhaps, even less than
the political. The pretension is more impious.
The falsehood is more gigantic. The mis-
chief more radical and more permanent : and
the overthrow of the principle when it comes
will be more complete. When that "end is
attained, all free minds and devout hearts
will have " light and gladness, and joy and
honour." " Joy and gladness, a feast and a
good day" — among all the tribes of Israel,
and in all the provinces of the kingdom
of grace, will come when the command-
ment of the heavenly King, which brings
peace, and purity, and liberty, and love, is
received.

JOY AND GLADNESS. 217

11.

There is something in all human action
unrepealable. In an evil hour that black
edict of death went out sealed with the king's
seal. It was not to be put in execution for
many long months. It is now practically
revoked as far as it can be. And really,
looking at the circumstances, one cannot help
wondering how it was that means could not
be found by the king's wise men to make it
practically innocuous, to make it as though it
had never been enacted — so that not one
single human life should fall by its means in
any way. But it couldn't be, apparently.
The Jews are saved largely, but the Persians
bleed. They fall in great numbers under an
edict that was never intended to touch them.
If the Jews' enemies, who seem to have been
numerous and envenomed, had been wise and
prudent, still more, if they had been chari-
table and fraternal, perhaps they might have
obviated almost the whole of the bloody issue
of the business that came. But the only way
of making quite sure that we shall obviate or
nullify the consequences of an evil action, or

2i8 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

an evil course of conduct (If one may express
the thing in a strong solecism) is — not to do
the action ; not to follow the course of con-
duct. For when the deed is done, when the
movement is on foot, when the influence is
spreading, it is utterly beyond our power to
arrest, and modify, and extinguish at our will.
Few things are more melancholy and affecting
than the deep concern and trouble of aroused
consciences in view of things deeply regretted,
but seen to be beyond recall, and, in a large
degree, intractable to modification and man-
agement. It is easy to touch a spring in a
piece of complex machinery where there is
force of water or steam pent up and ready to
play ; but if you don't know all the conse-
quences, you had better 7iot touch the spring.
Still more, if human lives will be endangered
certainly, or other serious mischief made
possible, then, surely, you would restrain your
hand.

We must not take a morbid view, and
afflict ourselves with imaginary fears, and
think of this great machine we call provi-
dence as if it were full of lurking mischiefs
ready to break out at the slightest touch. It

JOY AND GLADNESS. 219

is indeed a thing of immense vitality and
force. In the bosom of providence, i£. in
the heart of our human Hfe here where we
are living it, lie stored the influences of the
past, the present interests of living men, a
thousand plans, a thousand purposes, and
thousands of wills, guiding them and urging
them on to effectuation, and the divine power
overruling all. In this great process things
are perverted. Things meant for good, by-
touching evil things, are turned to evil ;
things meant for evil, on the other hand, are
smitten by the royal power of goodness, and
almost changed in their nature. We are not
responsible for these changes. We are not
responsible for all subtle combinations into
which our action may be drawn with other
things after it has passed from ourselves.
We are responsible chiefly, almost exclusively,
for this — the action in itself, the course of
conduct in itself We cannot control the
consequences, and we shall not be account-
able for them except in so far as they are the
direct and proper fruit of the action. If we
do what is right, and wise, and for good
reasons, we have nothing to fear. If we do

220 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

wilfully or carelessly what we know to be
wrong, we have every reason to look for the
evil consequences, and every reason to judge
that we are responsible for them as far as
personal responsibility goes in such a case.
But

III.

this narrative may teach us farther (and
this is a brighter lesson) that in the darkest
and most unpromising circumstances there is
nearly always some way of relief and improve-
ment. How seldom are things so in human
life that literally nothing can be done ! There
is something unrepealable in all important
human action. But there is also much that
may be practically repealed. I think we
may say that never, at any one time, in the
history of a nation ; never, in the life of an
individual, are things so dark and bad that
nothing can be done to amend and lighten
them. On the contrary, this world, and the
social and individual spheres of it, this whole
mundane system, is constructed on the plan,
so to say, of admitting, suggesting, prompting

JOY AND GLADNESS. 221

to, and furnishing, the means of continual
recovery.

If this were not so, the world would soon
be full of the most pitiable spectacles that
could be conceived ; communities and indi-
viduals sitting hopelessly amid the gloom of
their own failures, amid the consequences of
their own mistakes, amid the deepening un-
happiness arising from the memory of their
own sins — the strokes of penalty heard
resounding on every side, the waters of
misery rising silently and coldly within, while
the long night of despair is deepening and
settling without. Such pictures are not to
be seen. There is indeed much suffering in
the world ; some of it penalty, and much of
it not. And there are all kinds of calamities,
and mischances, and unexpected and unsus-
pected griefs, and things that ought never to
have happened, and things which fill you
with sympathy, and pain, and profound regret,
and perhaps indignation, as soon as you know
them. And there are many mournful people
who make the worst of them ; or shall we say
the best of them, for they really seem to
find a kind of dismal enjoyment in seeing

222 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

how bad they are, and in anticipating that
they are going to be still worse.

But who knows not, also, that calamities
and misfortunes are retrieved, that injuries
are redressed, that mistakes are rectified ?
Who knows not that oppressions come to
an end, and bloody wars, and other evil
works ? Yes, and those things are accom-
plished sometimes just when everything ap-
pears almost hopeless, and by means which
do not seem at all sufficient or equal to the
end.

As Esther set her single will against the
deadly edict, and drew from it, as far as her
people were concerned, its deadliness, so a
single will is often set against a whole system
of evil, and by vigorous and persevering
assaults it is brought to an end.

IV.

It is worth reflecting just for a few moments
on the last clause of the last verse. " Many
of the people of the land became Jews." It
may indeed be questioned whether the ad-
hesion of some of them was worth very much.

JOY AND GLADNESS. 223

" The fear of the Jews fell on them." They
were consulting for their own safety ; they
were not professing, from intelligence and
conviction, a better religion. They saw the
fate of Haman. They knew now that the
queen was a Jewess, and the prime minister,
and the king, of course, in these circumstances,
in their favour. Why should they swim
against wind and tide ? Why should they
not be safe ? Why should they not make
safety doubly sure by incorporating them-
selves with this strange, this indestructible,
this irresistible, people ? It may thus be
that many of them, in becoming Jews, had
no more in their minds than a prudent and
politic regard for their own safety. Good
Matthew Henry tries to abate the force of
this view by connecting their decision with
what goes before in the last verse, as well as
with its final clause. " The Jews had joy
and gladness, a feast and a good day, when
the king's commandment and decree came.
And because they showed themselves so
happy in the ways of their God and under
his protection, therefore the people of the
land were drawn to them, and said, ' We will

224 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

go with you, for we have heard, and now we
see, that the Lord is with you.' " Then he
makes this general reflection, which no doubt
is true enough — " The holy cheerfulness of
those who profess religion is a great orna-
ment to their profession, and will invite and
encourage others to be religious." We shall
be safer to follow the narrative more closely,
and suppose that it was tJie fear of the Jews
much more than any admiration of them, or
any felt attraction by them, which made
these converts. But what then t Either
way it was a gain, although not so much in
one way as in the other.

V.

We hope it may not be considered an
anticlimax if we close this Lecture by asking
you to pay a tribute of thankfulness to the
four-footed creatures which were the really
effective executors of the king's decree of
salvation for the Jews. Without the aid of
these creatures it would have been impossible
to convey the tidings to some of the provinces
in time. Imperial man is, physically, and in

JOY AND GLADNESS. 225

regard to locomotion, but a poor ineffective
biped compared with the four-footed creatures
here named — " the horse, the mule, the camel,
the young dromedary." He can bridle and
yoke the horse, and direct him whither he
will ; but he could not himself run as swiftly
or carry so much, or continue so long on the
way. He can bestride the patient camel
and tell the world that it is not so patient as
it looks, that it has an evil temper. But no
man could plod on for days across the desert
of sand without water or food. He can
shoot the eagle, but he could not fly across
a narrow stream or chasm, if his life depended
on it. So royal, so subject is man ! So
strong, so weak. And therefore God has
given him these helps of the other creatures
exactly suited to his needs. Surely it does
not require an argument to show that we
ought to have very kindly feelings to these
inferior, but most helpful creatures. Very
helpful they were in this old Persian world.
These ^^ posts " mentioned in the chapter —
these riders carrying letters on swift beasts,
were historically very distinguished, as being
probably the first fully-organised and equipped
Q

226 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

service of the kind in the world — the first,
and one of the best that has ever been.
Posts and couriers began in Persia, — so say
the Greek writers — and reached great per-
fection there. Postal stations were on the
ways to all the provinces. Solitary enough
some of them would be in the sparsely
peopled parts of the country. But horses
and men were at each station. The posts
travelled night and day, without intermission ;
and the whole world stood astonished at the
celerity with which edicts were carried to
distant provinces ; and with which tidings
from these provinces reached the capital
again.

Certainly most helpful these creatures were
on this occasion. " But surely we are not
expected to throw gratitude back so far in
history, and to creatures so long since per-
ished and gone ? " Well, no, not in any
lively form, certainly, but those creatures have
left successors in the world ; and there can-
not be many of us who are not served by
them, more or less, almost every day. They
carry our letters still, even in the city, and
yet more, if we write to friends in out-of-the-

JOY AND GLADNESS. 227

way places. They carry our goods. They
carry our persons. While there are humbler
tribes and classes of the great animal creation,
that come about us on our invitation, simply
for our enjoyment. They attend us for our
pleasure : we should see to it that it is not at
the sacrifice of their own. " The merciful
man is merciful to his beast." If, i.e., he has
the really merciful disposition, the expressions
of it will not be confined to the members of
his own species. It will go through all the
spheres of organised and sensitive existence.
In proportion as a nation grows, in thought-
fulness, in gentleness, in generosity, in justice,
the inferior creatures in that nation will feel
the benefit. The feeling and habit we
commend is almost what we call the feeling
of humanity. We quite acknowledge the
difference in the nature of the objects of our
compassion when we pity the oppressed, the
persecuted, the wounded in war, and when
we pity over-driven and half-famished horses,
some of them mercilessly abused by drivers,
or vivisected dogs. But it is very difficult to
distinguish between the one feeling and the
other, at least at the point where they meet.

228 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

And there is no need to distinguish. We
have this great fountain (great unless we
make it small) of natural compassion in the
breast — that we may pity all suffering — that
we may be kind to all creatures.

Do we not know that this is a more divine
feeling than many imagine, and lies closer
along the line of our redemption 1 For what
is our redemption, and how is it accom-
plished } Redemption is the mercifulness of
God to man — pardoning, purifying, restoring
him from sin and misery, and extending to
him some small measure of his own divine
felicity. Redemption is accomplished by the
coming down of God among men. The acts
of redemption are a series of condescensions —
divine condescensions. God comes down into
the world in the person of His Son. He
comes down farther yet, into the individual
heart, by the indwellings, and illuminations,
and comfortings of the Spirit. He comes
down into the lowliest ways of our life, by
His providence, meeting us wherever we have
need to be.

Nor is this all. He teaches the angels
the same lesson. If they would help Him,

JOY AND GLADNESS. 229

they can only do it in one way — they must
serve. " Are they not all ministering spirits.?"
serving a race inferior to themselves. Well,
we too, surely, must condescend and come
down — first to those of our fellow-creatures
of the human race who are beneath ourselves
in knowledge, in privilege, in virtue, — to the
" men of low estate," and then to the waiting,
serviceable, helpful creatures, treating them —
I shall not say mercifully only, but justly and
rightly. We know nothing about the possible
immortality of any of the animal races or of
any individual specimens of the same. See,
there is a shepherd who for years on those
hill -sides, grassy green in summer, snow-
white in winter, has had one faithful com-
panion in the keeping of the flock ; and what
an attachment has sprung up between them,
and been growing silently through all those
years, it would surprise some people to know.
Well, the dog dies ; and the shepherd dies —
are we quite sure that they are never to meet
again ? and that there is not to be some
realisation, not of course in the rough form,
but in some refined form, of the Indian's
expectation — " that, when translated to that

230 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

equal sky, his faithful dog shall bear him
company." But I say we know nothing of
this — one way or other remember — and we
found no obligation of man to the animal
world on the basis of their possible immor-
tality. No ; their claim rests on what they
are, on the nature they possess, on the sensibili-
ties they evince, on the services they render,
on the plans they respectively fill in this
manifold, wonderful, interdependent, world
and life. We cannot treat them cruelly or
neglectfully, without violating what may be
called "rights" — although the poor dumb
creatures cannot plead them. In fact, in
that way we show ourselves irreligious, un-
faithful, unfilial ; while by mercifulness and
kindness we show ourselves the children of
Him who, by the opening of His hand, satis-
fieth the desire of every living thing.

LECTURE XL

Chapter IX, to the end of the book.
DEFENCE AND VICTORY OF THE JEWS.

HERE remains now not much to
explain in this history ; although
what remains is eventful and
tragical enough. The fated day came slowly
on. " Light, and gladness, and joy, and
honour," had come to the Jews, with the
tidings of the decree passed in their favour
giving them liberty of defence. But it is
very likely that as the slow months rolled on,
and the terrible 13th day of the month
Adar drew near, they had their dark times of
depression and apprehension. They could
not be qtdte sure how the matter would turn
out until the day had come and gone. The
intervening months were spent, however, not

232 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

in alarmed apprehension, but in wise and
efficient preparation. None of the Jews
seem to have fled out of the country. None
were factious or timorous. They drew to-
gether in the respective cities and districts,
put themselves under strict discipline, and
prepared themselves for the sternest resistance
if it should be necessary.

And it was necessary. For, strange to
say, although the tide has now so completely
turned in favour of the Jews, there seems no
abatement at all corresponding, or such as
might be expected, in the hostility and hatred
of a considerable part of the population of
the Persian Empire. Haman, the author of
the edict of blood, gone ! the queen a Jewess!
the prime minister a Jew ! the king adopt-
ing their policy, — these are very strong cir-
cumstances,— which no doubt produced due
effect on the official classes everywhere.
They would all but certainly go with the
policy of the second edict. They would
naturally and excusably be on the side of
the prevailing influence. Yet, notwithstand-
ing all this, there seems left quite a large
body of the Persians filled with unquench-

DEFENCE &r VICTORY OF THE JEWS. 233

able hatred of this strange people called
Jews ; and who are preparing to carry out
the Jirs^ edict to its bloodiest issues as far as
their power may go. We have not any
specific declarations to this effect. But the
facts show this beyond all question. For we
must remember that the Jews were not
allowed to assail their enemies unprovoked,
but only to defend themselves by resisting
and even attacking those who are preparing
to assail and destroy them. In these circum-
stances, that so many should have been slain
by the Jews, shows that their assailants
must have been numerous, and that their
antipathies must have been indeed strong.
No doubt, as the history tells us, " the
enemies of the Jews hoped to have power
over them." " But it was turned to the con-
trary " — as mischievous and cruel plans so
often are. The Jews " gathered themselves
together:" stood for their life: laid hands
on those who would have assaulted them ;
were helped by rulers, lieutenants, deputies,
officers — by the whole civil service of the
country, while the name of the great minister
Mordecai stood like a tower of strength to

234 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

them. And the result was that 500 men
were slain in the capital, in Shushan the palace,
and throughout the whole empire 75,000
men ! This is the military result of the con-
flict, and a very dreadful result it is to come
from one man's malignity and pride. Some
rationalistic writers have called in question
the truth of this narrative, founding their
objection to it chiefly on the somewhat
astounding character of these figures, 75,000
all slain by a handful of people ; and not
one Jew slain ! Nay, the narrative does not
say that no Jews fell. It passes the matter
by in silence. But the certainty, we should
say, is that some of the Jews fell The prob-
ability is that a moderate number of the
Jewish combatants died in the ignoble strife,
— for it was street-fighting — barricade-work,
or something analogous, such as excitable
people betake themselves to in times of
revolution.

Then as to the numbers slain by the Jews,
let us see if there be anything incredible in
the statement. Consider the size of the great
Persian kingdom ; and that it must have
contained at this time at least a hundred

DEFENCE & VICTORY OF THE JEWS. 235

millions of people. The number of Jews, it is
thought, could not have been much less than
three millions. Three million people could
send out 500,000 men easily, capable of
bearing arms. And it is not at all incredible,
that in the kind of fighting we have referred
to, where their enemies being the assailants,
would be exposed and at a disadvantage,
75,000 should fall. Shushan the capital was
about the size of a very famous city of our
own day — Stamboul or Constantinople — it
held half a million of people. Would there
be anything incredible in hearing that 500
men had fallen in street-fighting, if such a
thing should break out ? Surely not. But
sceptical critics always treat the Bible more
hardly in the matter of evidence than other
books, and unless the proof be overwhelming,
which it generally is however, they quietly
assume that, in some way, a great mistake
has occurred.

75,000 ! A terrible death-list — contain-
ing who knows how many affecting instances
of bereavement, and sorrow, and distress.

Among the rest fell the ten sons of Haman,
which is affecting enough in some aspects.

236 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

True they seem to have courted, and merited
therefore, the fate which thus overtakes them.
If they had not been fighting of their own
will and choice, they would not have been
slain. They were probably chiefs and ring-
leaders of the Hamanist or anti-Jewish faction,
and as they voluntarily rush forward into the
dangers of the strife, they must take the
chances of the war, and meet their fate, as I
daresay they did, bravely and without com-
plaining. Yet, surely, that fate is a pitiful one !
Ten of them ! — and all in strong bright youth
and manhood ! And possessors of such names
— speaking as those names do of the father's
and mother's pride in them ! and love for
them ! and hope concerning them ! They
are all slain — and then not buried even with
the soldier's hasty burial — but to fix on them
the deepest stigma and disgrace — they are
hung ! Probably this was done, as some of
the commentators suggest, partly as a warning
to the enemies of the Jews, and might thus
operate to the saving of human life. But
there can be no doubt that it was also done
passionately and spitefully. It does not do
— I mean it is not quite safe for ourselves to

DEFENCE & VICTORY OF THE JEWS. 237

be too ingenious in finding the most favour-
able explanations of doubtful things, because
they are done by the people of God. For
our own souls' health and magnanimity it is
necessary to say that — while we do not judge
of circumstances unknown to us, and of the
worth of reasons which are not written down
— we do see and think that hanging up ten
young men in this way after they were dead
— it is said one above another — is in itself a
small, mean, malignant thing — in its nature
too much like the spirit of that very Haman
whose name they wished to blot out from
the earth.

On the other side of the account this —
that with emphasis it is stated that in Shushan
the palace, in a great city, they slew 500
men. Twice it is said they slew only men.
They were allowed to slay women and
children. But as this was not necessary to
their own preservation, they took the course
dictated by humanity and mercy. And this
stands well to their credit.

It might seem perhaps to some that
Esther herself was lacking in this humanity,
when, using" her ereat influence over her

238 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

uxorious husband, and in reply to his desire
to know what now she wished further done,
assuring her that her wish should immediately
be royal command — she asked not only
that Haman's sons should be hanged — but
that there might be another day of slaughter
added to the first. One very vigorous
objector speaks of it as " another day of
butchery in the palace." But that is mere ex-
cess and exaggeration. The whole meaning
of Esther's prayer is that the Jews might be
allowed to continue the defence for another
day, since the assault had not yet ceased.

The request was wholly reasonable, and it
was at once granted. It was only in the
palace, i.e. in the capital city, that this was
necessary ; throughout the provinces of the
empire the fighting began and ended on the
same day.

Then came the institution of the feast of
Purim, intended to be, as it has been, com-
memorative of the great and terrible danger
through which this whole nation passed, and
of the signal and happy deliverance wrought
for them in the good providence of God.
" The feast of Purim" — i.e. the feast of lots ;

DEFENCE & VICTORY OF THE JEWS. 239

for the Persic word " pur" signifies " the lot."
The lot was cast "into the lap" of time, for
their destruction, but the whole disposing
thereof was of the Lord for their preservation
and deliverance ; and now they decree to keep
a yearly feast in memory of these things, and
that it shall be a perpetual feast through all
their generations. It Jias been so kept ; it is
so kept at this day. The separate existence
of the Jews at this day is some proof of the
truth of the Scripture history concerning them.
The existence and observance of this feast
among them still is a proof of the truth of
that particular part of their history which is
written in this book.

We are now at the end of our exposition
of the book. A word or two may be said of
the persons described in the book who are
still living at the end of the history.

Ahasuerus.

The King Ahasuerus is (as you will re-
member we concluded) none other than the
great Persian monarch Xerxes, who invaded
Greece, and met with signal defeat and hu-

240 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

miliation there. The whole character of that
monarch agrees well with what we read of
Ahasuerus in this book of Esther. He built
a bridge over the Hellespont — -that famous
Hellespont where mighty nations are meeting,
and watching, and striving still. The elements
destroyed it, and he caused the engineers who
constructed it to be beheaded. The sea mis-
behaved on a stormy day, and he had it
scourged and fettered by sinking chains in it!
He dishonoured the remains of the valiant
Leonidas. He offered a reward to the in-
ventor of a new pleasure. It is the very man
who deposes Vashti for resisting his drunken
freak of vanity ; who yields to Esther because
she is beautiful ; who sits down to drink with
Haman after signing the death-warrant of
three millions of his own subjects ; who says
to Mordecai, "As it liketh you" — "get out of
the difficulty as best you can."

He came to an end which suits but too
darkly well with his character and life : he
was murdered in the year B.C. 465, by one
who aspired to the throne and did not reach
it, for he was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes.
Pass away from our view, thou arch pretender

DEFENCE & VICTORY OF THE JEWS. 241

to greatness ; thou kingly shadow without
kingly substance ; thou abject slave wearing a
monarch's dress ! Go to the grave that will
never be softened with the tears or touched
with the feet of mourners ; while we wonder
how one so vain and empty and bad as thou
could ever, even outwardly^ pl^iy so large a
part in the history of the world !

Haman's Wife.

Haman is gone, and his ten sons, and we
need say no more of them ; but Haman's
wife, it is said, survived — survived to think
sadly of her once famous husband, of her
stalwart sons, all swept away from her in a
storm of ruin and disgrace ! — survived to be
forgotten or neglected by the fair-weather
friends who once had esteemed it their pride
to be among her guests ! — survived to be
poor, and hungry, and in utter want. 'Tis
said she was found one day begging her bread.
Let us hope that, in the bitter school of ad-
versity and calamity like hers, she at length
learned to be merciful, to be womanly, and to
look on to a world in which, if we rightly
R

242 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

enter it, all sorrow may have compensation
and all misfortune be retrieved.

MORDECAI.

There is a Mordecai mentioned as having
returned to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, but
it is agreed that it could not be the Mordecai
of this book. It is far more likely that he
stayed where he was. A man of transcendent
political ability, he might judge himself more
in his place where he was ; better situated for
doing good to his people and the great cause
of God in the world than if he had returned
to Jerusalem. The book of Esther closes
with a high testimony in his favour. A clearer
and finer testimony hardly could be given,
as far as it goes. "He was great." Ah!
how that word "greatness" is often misused
and debased ! A man bears a certain name,
and therefore he is great ; or he wears a cer-
tain robe, and therefore he is great ; or he
succeeds in slaughtering an immense number
of his fellow-creatures, and therefore he is
great ; or by much cunning, and audacity, and
cleverness withal, he keeps himself in con-

DEFENCE & VICTORY OF THE JEWS. 243

spicuous place and before the eyes of his
fellow-countrymen, and therefore he is great !
Not such a greatness as any of these was
that of Mordecai. It was a greatness won,
no doubt, by his splendid faculty of manage-
ment, by his statesmanship, but, with real
substance in it of truth and goodness. He
was great, not only as at the practical head
of the government of this great empire of
Persia, but he was so esteemed among " his
own people," who were despised and perse-
cuted as they so often have been, and who
numbered not more than one in thirty of the
population. He " soiigJit the zuealtk of his
people." Jewish-like, no doubt, is this ; but
observe, it was his people's wealth, not his oivn,
he sought. And the last word concerning
him on record is this, that " he spake peace
to all his seed." He was accessible, he was
gentle, he was generous and patriotic, pro-
moting the well-being of his seed, but not at
the expense of the country in which he was
born. Would that all who are in great place
in our own country, and in this our own day,
would follow very literally Mordecai's example
and speak " peace."

244 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

Esther.

We part from her also on like terms of
thankfulness and admiration. There are
things, of course, about the court life and the
social life of that time which we abhor, and
in which Esther is mixed up. But in char-
acter and action she herself, as far as we can
see, is pure, and brave, and noble ; and she
continues so to the end. The last of her
public acts recorded is the confirmation of the
decree called by her own name, by which this
famous feast of Purim would be kept in the
families and along the generations of the
Jews, as it is this day. An affecting memo-
rial of the wonderful goodness of divine pro-
vidence to them, a yearly stimulus to grati-
tude, a yearly help to prayerfulness and trust.
Pass thoti away from our sight, O queen, in
unsullied beauty of true queenliness, in purity,
in honour, in unselfishness. " Many daughters
have done virtuously," and if we cannot say
that " thou excellest them all," we can say
that thou standest well forward among the
best. We know not what, farther, in this
earthly life shall happen to thee, or where thy

DEFENCE & VICTORY OF THE JEWS. 245

lot will be cast. But we feel sure that the
wonderful and kindly providence that watched
over thine orphanage, and made thee a queen,
the greatest queen in the world, and this for
the attainment of some of the greatest ends,
will not forsake thee now, but will in some
way make thee a blessing to thy people to
the end.

Now there are many general lessons and
inferences, taken from the book in its whole-
ness, on which we might easily enlarge.
We can select only a few of these, and give
them but a brief illustration : —

I.

A book like this of Esther, bringing before
us, as it does, in very vivid portraiture, the
state of the things in the foremost kingdom
of the world in that long ago time, enables
us to see, at least in some respects, what pro-
gress the zvorld has made since then. We
mean especially in the highest and best
things. This world's progress is a manifold
thing, composed of a great variety of ele-
ments ; and it has not gone on by graduated
steps, and as through an evolutionary devel-

246 THF BOOK OF ESTHER.

opment, without failure, recession, or reverse.
On the contrary, there have been many
alternations ; there has been much loss. There
are lost arts, and refinements and conveniences
of life have been lost, and books and MSS.
of great worth. There has not been always
gain ; and the gain has not been unmixed.
But there has been gain on the whole, and,
as we have said, especially in the highest
things. In regard to all that is comprised
under the great phrase, " civil and 7'eligioits
liberty,'' the world, on the whole, is now far-
ther forward than it has ever been before.
All the splendours of the Persian court, and
all the pomps and pleasures of that ancient
Eastern life, will not bear comparison with
the great things of Christendom and of our
Christian life — honour, virtue, truth, religion
in its twofold form of the love of God and
the love of man — these, and such like things,
are the fruits and proofs of this world's pro-
gress in the higher sense. And although they
are much mixed and darkly shaded and
environed at present by their opposites —
meanness, falsehood, cruelty, tyranny, licen-
tiousness, hatreds, envyings, strifes, in social.

DEFENCE & VICTORY OF THE JEWS. 247

national, and international life — yet are they
things which cannot die, because they have
come directly from God through Jesus Christ,
who therefore will keep such things living,
growing, multiplying, according to His pro-
mise, until they leaven the whole human race
and regenerate the whole world.

We know it might be objected to this
view of things that the moral providence of
God described in this book of Esther, as it
affects all the chief characters, seems to be
really a more perfect instrument than the
providence of this day. And one can imagine
a man, sadly, after looking at some of the
darker parts of life among ourselves, in social,
commercial, political, international things,
saying, " Ah, would that we had such a
providence among men and nations now —
especially among ourselves to-day. The
very providence that overthrew Haman, and
lifted Mordecai and Esther, and saved an
innocent people — a providence, sharp-eyed,
swift-footed, heavy-handed — to strike down,
to lift up ; to kill, to make alive ! " One
might answer — " We sometimes have still in
this tumultuous, tempestuous, ever-changing

248 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

life, things not so unlike the book of Esther
in celerity, unexpectedness, tragic pathos, and
grandeur." No one has the right to suppose
that God is managing the progress of this
world so that He may increasingly retire from
it. That were a wretched boon to the world.
Now and again, " by terrible things in right-
eousness," and, by beautiful and joyful things
in mercy, He makes His voxy presence known
among men. But the true answer to such
a reflection as that we have referred to
is this, that the moral providence of God
over nations and individuals now is a far
finer and more perfect instrument, so to say,
than that which we see working in the life of
Esther, or Ruth, or David, or Daniel. It is
a providence of principles calmly working
towards certain issues : a providence that
flows on more evenly now, fed from its foun-
tains of fulness and perfection in God : a
providence of divine power and grace, which
will secure at length the highest possible pro-
gress and perfection of the world and man.

And finally, we shall miss what is perhaps
the most precious teaching of this book if,

DEFENCE & VICTORY OF THE JEWS. 249

observing and thankful for such general pro-
gress in civil and religious things, we make this
in any way a substitute for the full sense we
ought always to have, of the presence and
action of a personal God. There is no need
to say, for every thoughtful well-read person
knows it, that the tendency, in our time, is
very strong to resolve the living God into
— progressive providence, into general laws,
into moral government Not so much the
spirit of ungodliness is leading men to this,
as the spirit of philosophy and the findings
of science — or, to put it perhaps more cor-
rectly, the spirit of the new philosophies inter-
preting the findings of science. " It is not a
vital matter," they say, how the great realities
are put : it is very much a matter of human
conception and individual taste : conduct may
be equally good either way — whether we say
" a great infinite power in the universe which
makes for righteousness," or — " the living and
true God " — whether we say " Force, material
and moral force, is king;" or "Jehovah is
king." This is a phase of human thought
which can only be met by strong argu-
ment, fair statements, and patient waiting ;

250 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

never by strong language simply. We
must not say to the philosophers any more
than to one another, " The adversary and
enemy is this wicked Haman." Those whose
opinions we controvert, and whose influence
in one particular line we would lessen, are
not wicked, are in fact in some respects ver}'
honest and true, slightly irreverent perhaps,
not strong in the religious faculty, given to
pry into physical mysteries, and to assume
that there are no mysteries or realities be-
yond, and to assume also that some new
definitions will explain them — but not wicked,
and therefore never to be made the subjects
of " railing " or even gentle " accusation."

But because there are scientists, and physi-
cal truth-seekers in the world now, who have
gone farther into the darkness of nature than
men ever went before, saying by their very
discoveries in some inferior sense — " Let
there be light " — are we no longer to believe
in the God of our fathers ? In " the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ "? This
book of Esther teaches this above all things,
that God is near to all that call upon Him,
to all who call upon Him in truth, and that

DEFENCE & VICTORY OF THE JEWS. 251

He is always working for the protection of
those who really trust in Him, and for the
advancement of every right cause, and for
the punishment of evil-doers, and for the
confusion of every evil work. He took the
little orphan -girl by the hand, and at last
made her a queen ! He lifted the keeper of
the king's gate, and set him over all the pro-
vinces of the empire ! He hurled the proud
and revengeful Amalekite from the heights
of power to the depths of shame ! By a
sleepless night, and recollections of a deliver-
ance produced accidentally in the king's
mind. He wrought out His own will in firm
texture. And " this God is our God for ever
and ever." He has not left the world since
then, is not any farther away from it, has
surely drawn it a little nearer to Himself
The daylight is more and not less His smile.
The darkness is more the shadow of His
wings. There are even select ones who so
share His own thought and love and life
that they have their human part of His high
experience in finding " the darkness and the
light both alike alway." And the summer
is His beauty. And the autumn is His

252 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

generosity. And human kindness springs
up under the very breath of His nearness ;
while all His deeper thoughts are told out
to us in the gift of His dear Son. Still He
is the strength of the worker ; and the rest
of the weary. Still doth His hand wipe
away the mourner's tears. Still, and for
ever, in His tireless love He is about the
ways of all who do not by black unbelief
shut Him out of their life. It concerns us,
infinitely far beyond all mortal concernments,
that we shut Him not out of ours.

THE END.

Printed by R. & R. Clakk, Edinburgh.

By the Same.

NINTH EDITION.

In One Volume, Crown 8vo, Price 7s. 6d.

^luiet Resting Places

AND OTHER SERMONS.

Contemporary Review.

Full of exquisite beauty of thought and language ; sometimes
bordering on the fanciful in their application of texts, but even
then never going beyond the limits of good taste and simple
pathos. The title of the Volume is taken from the text of the
first sermon, and it w^ell describes the character of the book. Dr.
Raleigh specially seeks out the indications given in the divine
promises of rest and refreshment, and pursues them into their ful-
filments in the ordinary life of the Christian.

British Quarterly Review^.

Sermons of great beauty and powder, such as rarely issue from
the press. We can only wish them the widest possible circulation.

Eclectic Review.

We must lay down this volume ; it cannot be less delightful
than useful. We have quoted sufficiently to show that the reader
will find, in almost any page, a quiet resting-place in its short
graphic pictures, and revealings of homes and hearts, in its pen-
sive but never merely sentimental stillness, in its, we had almost
said, robust language, and its healthful views of hfe and religion.

254 QUIET RESTING PLACES — Co}itiniied.

Record.

The word "sermons" prefixed to a book serves more as a
warning than an attraction to the majority of readers. We must
plead guilty to sharing in this feeling, and are therefore the more
bound to acknowledge the gratification we have had, the profit
and pleasure we should rather say, in reading this volume.
Thoroughly evangelical truth is taught with the freshness of
thought and expression of one who has himself drawn the living
water from the fountain-head. It is just the book to place in the
hands of young people, of whom there are too many in the pres-
ent day who have taken up the foolish prejudice that beauty of
style and nobleness of thought are only to be found in conjunction
with errors. As a matter of literary taste, we greatly admire Mr.
Raleigh's style. It is not a string of illustrations, and yet it is
rich. It is perfectly intelligible, without any affectation of sim-
plicity. And as you read the book, you cannot help thinking
more of the substance than the manner, with the consciousness, all
the while, that you are carried along on a stream of pleasant
words. It is of no use to make extracts, but we strongly advise
our readers to buy " Quiet Resting Places" for themselves.

Sheffield Independent.

Those of our readers who have heard the Author need not be
told they are admirable specimens of thoroughly-reasoned dis-
courses, opening up the Scriptures on which they are founded
with marvellous skill, clearness, and fulness. There is nothing
commonplace in them, but every one is replete with fresh and
earnest thought — thought so thrilling and vitalising, that their
effect is anything but quiet-giving. They evoke thought and
emotion, and cannot be read without drawing out the reader to
immediate and determined action.

QUIET RESTING PLACES C077tinued. 255

Western Daily Press.

We have not, indeed, met with sermons to be compared with
Mr. Raleigh's for exquisite and delicate forms of thought and
imagination. Rigid criticism may be applied to them without
any other result than unqualified admiration. As mere composi-
tions, they excite surprise by the minute and patient finish, by the
polished thought, as well as by the apt and striking words em-
ployed. Their higher qualities we leave the reader to judge of by
the extracts which we add.

Christian Times.

We have read these sermons, and, rising from their perasal,
our first impulse is to thank God that they have been preached
and printed.

Patriot.

Great and almost perfect as is their literary beauty, this is not
their chief characteristic ; they are full of spiritual sensibility and
purpose ; they aim supremely, and in eveiy paragraph, at what
should be the end of all preaching, the spiritual edification of the
hearers. But the literary finish and beauty of the sermons are so
remarkable that none can fail to be arrested by them. Every
sentence is poetically conceived and artistically chiselled. He has
bestowed infinite pains to make things simple. He is a consum-
mate artist in words. How beautiful the form is into which his
thoughts are put will be seen in the extracts that we subjoin.

Our Own Fireside.

The third edition of this volume indicates that a portion of the
public, at least, have rightly estimated its value ; but we confess

256 QUIET RESTING PLACES — Co?lti?lued.

a " third " edition is far from satisfactory. Religious books, weak
and vapid in character, are too often widely circulated, while such
works as this, for example, only reach the thoughtful few. It
will not be our fault if our readers do not enrich their libraries, if
they have not already done so, with "Quiet Resting Places."
We have inserted one of the chapters in our present part — " The
House of Obed-edom " — as a specimen of twenty other chapters
or sermons treating of topics of absorbing interest. Eveiy page
of this volume bears the impress of a sound mind, judicious
amidst its originality, and truly reverential, notwithstanding its
independence ; and we should regard it as a token for good if tlie
"third" edition speedily became the "thirtieth."

EDINBURGH : ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK.

By the Same.
In One Volume, Illustrated, Price 3s. 6d.

THE

Story of yonah the Prophet.

British Quarterly Review.

It is hardly possible to speak too highly of the dramatic force,
the historic imagination, the brilliancy and piquancy with which
our author has made this old-world story live again. He has
produced a photograph of the prophet, and has analysed his char-
acter and mental development with an insight and sympathy
approaching to genius ; and difficult as the task has been, he has,
we think, with few exceptions, brought us in his treatment of
the narrative face to face with God. The three chapters entitled
" The Flight," " Sailed," "The Storm," convey to us the impres-
sion of great power, and we reckon them among the most im-
pressive sermons that we have ever read. The felicitous diction,
the masterly exegesis, the dexterous application of the principles
that are evolved to modern life, and dangers, and controversy,
and the moral power of the closing appeals to the conscience,
give these discourses superlative merit. The closing discourse,
entitled " Selah," contains passages of great beauty and suggest-
iveness ; and the volume as a whole is one of the most practical
and morally earnest that we have ever read.

Record.

We have aheady had occasion to speak in high terms of the
published sermons of Dr. Raleigh, and the present volume fully
bears out our favourable opinion, both as to its style and matter.
S

258 THE STORY OF JONAH — Contiiuted.

Eclectic Review.

This new volume from the pen of Dr. Raleigh will more than
sustain the reputation of the author of " Quiet Resting Places ; "
its appearance is about the most remarkable we ever remember
to have found associated with a volume of sermons, and appeals
quite as much to the recherche tastes of the drawing-room table
as its matter conducts to the oratory or the study ; the illumina-
tions at the opening of each discourse ; the map upon the title-
page ; the sketches from the antique ; the tinted frontispiece
illustrating Jonah's traditional tomb — all give to the volume an
appearance of artistic elegance which certainly should not be un-
noticed in the introduction of the volume to our readers

Here, then, we do not so much bid farewell to Dr. Raleigh as
introduce his volume to our readers, assuring them that through-
out its pages it shines with the same subdued splendour of speech,
and melts with the same pathos of feeling, as in those passages
we have quoted.

Freeman.

The qualities of the book, that strike even a cursory observer,
are the beauty of the thought, the clearness and directness of the
style, the manly strong sense displayed in the views given of
mysterious truth, and the reverent, earnest spirit that pervades
the whole. We might quote from each of the fourteen chapters
of the volume — every passage affording instruction and exciting
delight.

Patriot.

The present volume is sure to enhance his high reputation.
It has all the richness of thought, the felicity of illustration, the
wonderful charm of style, and the warm glow of devout and holy
feelings by which its predecessor was distinguished ; and, com-
bined with these, a large infusion of elements in which it was

THE STORY OF JONAH — CoJlHnued. 259

somewhat deficient. Dr. Raleigh is a master of word-painting.
In many points he reminds us of Dr. Guthrie, with whom he has
not unfrequently been compared. He has, however, a more
thorough control of his own powers than the great Free Church
divine. There is less gorgeousness, but there is more simplicity,
naturalness, quiet and chastened beauty. His book is sure to be
popular.

Christian Witness.

We are carried forward from page to page, from chapter to
chapter, of the " Story of Jonah " with scarcely a consciousness of
time or of labour. Everything is so simple, so clear, so natural,
and therefore so beautiful, that we forget both the writer and his
style, and become absorbed in the facts and the thoughts them-
selves.

Nonconforraist.

In eveiy page do the preacher's well-known devoutness, taste,
and skill appear. His pictorial power and his fine sympathy,
which intuitively appreciates the subtler as well as the more
obvious suggestions of each moral scene, find ample occasion and
scope in the strange history of Jonah, We are very sure the book
will be widely read, and we are glad that Dr. Raleigh speaks
through so instructive and impressive a volume to the churches
of our land.

EDINBURGH : ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK.

DATE DUE

HIGHSMITH #45115