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 
 i l 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. 
 
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