Esther 7:6

"The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman."

IN the third chapter we saw that Ahasuerus fell into Hainan's hand in the matter of killing the Jews:

"And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the king's laws: therefore it is not for the king's profit to suffer them. If it please the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed: and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those that have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king's treasuries. And the king took his ring from his hand, and gave it unto Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews' enemy" (Esther 3:8-10).

No name was mentioned, so far as the record enables us to judge. The question, therefore, of Ahasuerus—"Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?"—was neither an expression of affectation nor of ignorance. Ahasuerus thought that Haman could do no harm, no wrong; so hearing a request from his chief officer he took off his ring and said: Operate according to thy desire; carry out thy policy, and pay the money. This being done, "the king and Haman sat down to drink." No good can come of that. Into what history soever that line enters, we shall find mischief sooner or later. What happened afterwards we have already seen. Ahasuerus, Esther, and Haman are now at the second banquet; the queen is asked once more for her petition and her request:

"Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish" (Esther 7:3-4).

This is the speech she would have made a day or two ago, but could not; the king's face did not read favourably. Ahasuerus had indeed challenged Esther to make her petition and her request known unto him, but she read every wrinkle in his face, pondered every tone of his voice, and as we have said she made haste slowly. Now the second banquet is being held, and this pathetic request has been urged, and the king demands the name of the man who has plotted this destruction; and Esther, looking that look of earnestness which never can be mistaken, fixed her eyes upon her enemy, and, mayhap lifting the index finger, said, "The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman." There are moments when we must speak. We speak best in such moments when we do not know what we are going to say:—"It shall be given you in that same hour what ye ought to speak." We know the substance of it, but the accent is given at the moment; the tone is Pentecostal, the accent is sharpened with the sadness of inspiration.

The best way of dealing with every enemy is to avoid generalities; beware of the sophism associated with vague sentiments. Definite statements are manageable, but vague charges are never to be entertained. He is always a false accuser who makes a general charge; he is a learned false witness, skilled and cunning, who says he will not go into the case: he will say nothing about it: he thinks it better to hold his tongue. Would God his tongue had been cut out before he said that! He has said more by not saying than he could have said if he had told the truth. The supreme, vital, ever-useful lesson of this incident is that we are to lift the index finger, point to the adversary and the enemy, and name him. When we learn this lesson we shall make progress in many upward and beneficent directions. No man makes progress who deals in generalities. The sermon is in the application. The prayer is in the Amen. The Amen is not a final word in any rhetorical sense; it is the word that takes up into itself all preceding words, and repeats them with the conciseness which heaven cannot mistake.

Let us apply this teaching in one or two directions:—For example, in the matter of our own personal character. We should accuse ourselves frankly. A man should be upon such good terms with himself as always to tell himself the truth. How can this be done? May not a man say: I am in a world of sin and sorrow, and am tainted by the general atmosphere, and it is most difficult to thread one's way through principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world? No. We have had enough of that pointless sentiment. You ask, May not a man describe himself as a poor wandering sheep in wolf-land? The answer is, No. You must be just to your own character and destiny. Put your finger upon the weak point of your character, and say, The adversary and enemy is this wicked—Self-indulgence. Sometimes you go a long way towards abashing an enemy by naming him: he sees that you are coming into close quarters with him, and he feels how small is his strength, and sometimes he falls backward to the ground. Tell yourself that you are allowing your life to ooze away through self-gratification. You never say No to an appetite; you never smite a desire in. the face. Do not talk about the general ill-condition of the world, the infirmities of human nature, but lift the finger, look the enemy in the face, and say, Thy name is Self-indulgence; the wine is killing me; the gratification of illicit desire is sapping the foundations of my life, taking the life which issues out of my brain, making a fool of me: I must speak the truth and name the enemy. Others can see it; other men know when you are telling lies by delivering yourselves of generalities; they see the brute coming up through the face that was meant to be divine; every time they meet you they say, The enemy has written his signature once more upon that countenance; the man's voice is not what it was wont to be; he does not look so steadily: how his eye wanders, how his cheek flushes, how his lips have lost their firmness and expressiveness, and how altogether he is going down in a lurch that signifies weakness wrought by concupiscence and evil! You will never be cured until you name the disease.

Look at the subject in another direction:—The adversary and enemy is this hateful Jealousy. Jealousy does not like to be named. Jealousy is sensitive, a most delicate refined creature, that cannot bear the cold wind or the indication of some accusing and reproachful finger. Jealousy! who ever knew it? Whoever has known it can never forget it Jealousy spoils everything: it throws a black mantle over the white dawn, and turns the noonday to dark night, and the summer it clothes with sackcloth. Though it had all gold and silver and honour, yet so long as there was one poor Mordecai in the way all would go for nothing. Does the helm turn the ship? Does a little thing move the vessel of life? So jealousy may move the whole nature in wrong directions, away from havens that invite it to repose and luxury and security. Your disease, you say to yourself, is jealousy. Speak in this fashion: when you have entered your closet, and shut the door, say, I am a jealous man, and therefore I am an unjust man; I cannot bear that that man should be advancing; I hate him; the recollection of his name interferes with my prayers; would God I could lay hold of something I could publish against him! I would run him to death: yes, this is the reality of the case: Almighty God, cast out this devil, this all-devil; only thou canst exorcise this Legion. Now there is hope of you; you have named the enemy. But you have been going about, saying, I am sure I feel no jealousy: why should I? what is there to be jealous about? after all, who is he? the thing is positively ludicrous to me, that I should be charged with jealousy. Thus men tell lies to themselves, and therefore they never can be cured.

Or take it in some other aspect, and say:—The adversary and enemy is this eternal Worldliness that will not let me get near my God: I know it; I sing hymns audibly, and make bargains inaudibly at the same time; I take my whole business to church, I audit my books at the altar; when some poor earnest or fanatical man asks me to bow my head in prayer, I close my eyes that I may see my business affairs the more distinctly: I will speak to myself about this; I will say, Thou art a worldly man—that is, a world-living man; thou art satisfied with dust, with time, with sense, with things that can be held in the hand; thou canst not pray, there are bags of gold upon thy dumb lips, and through them thou canst not breathe a supplication to heaven: God pity me! for the world has hold of my right hand and of my left hand, and when I look abroad it is to see what I can next seize, how I can more perfectly satisfy my avidity. Now you have begun to mend—"To know oneself diseased is half the cure"—there is hope of thee now, O patient; but in talking generalities and vague sentiments, in looking impiously pious, thou wast telling lies to thyself, and hurting God. Every man carries the enemy within himself. A man can have but one real enemy. Look the enemy in the face; call him your enemy; name him. He thinks you do not know him; he conceals himself by many skilfully-arranged disguises and hears you speak of general infirmity, and then he strikes you again; but if you will lay hands upon him, and look at him with eyes of fire, and name him with the eloquence of earnestness, you will at least have begun the right conditions of battle; God be with the truth! This would put an end to a good deal of pastoral intercourse. Pastors have to listen to many lies softly spoken. They could name the adversary and the enemy, but they shrink from doing so, and call that shrinking delicacy.

What say you to this case? A man is dying of a fatal disease, and he knows it; the disease is internal, his life is ebbing out of him; and yet he says, I hear as well as ever, I see distinctly, I have not lost a single limb. Why this irony of enumerating supposed points of strength when the life itself is succumbing to a fatal assault? Would it not be wiser on the part of the man to say, Do not tell me wherein I am apparently complete and strong; direct attention to the disease that is killing me, and if you can do anything towards the mitigation or cure of that disease, for pity's sake, and in pity's name, do it; but do not talk to me about symptoms that are apparently favourable: as a dying man, I ask you to save me from death! That is earnestness; that is religiousness. Now are we faithful to ourselves, or do we shrink from self-reproach? Do we take refuge in generalities? If so we can make no progress, and our pastors' solicitude and teachers' eloquence go for nothing because of our own self-neglect.

The same point of view may be occupied with regard to public accusations. Take it in the matter of national decay. Where is there a minister who will have courage enough to say, The adversary and enemy is this wicked—, and then name the most popular sin of the day? We love to hear the minister speaking generalities, and if we can assign those generalities in any degree to the person sitting immediately behind us we are proportionately gratified; but directness we never paid for. No man subscribes to a ministry that is direct and personal. Many ministries have been ruined because they would not trifle with the hearers, but would when occasion needed come straight down upon the richest, strongest man in the congregation, and say, Thy name is Iscariot! That was pointed, personal, and the poor soul, fool of fools, he went away and came no more. No man ever pays a pew-rent for the purpose of having the truth spoken to him, though he is willing to subscribe that insignificant trifle to hear generalities which he can dissolve in air. So mysterious is the religious sentiment! So incalculable is religious charity! Who in looking abroad upon the country will say, The adversary and enemy is this wicked liquor traffic? He would lose hearers; but he would be a stronger man for getting that burden off his conscience. What is the use of ministers and Sunday-school teachers, tract distributers and Christian visitors, going up and down doing their work whilst the infernal drink traffic is slaying, damning the land? Where is there a teacher who dares stand up and say, The adversary and enemy is this wicked official self-seeking? He would be accounted rude. Critics would say, There is about him a kind of brusqueness that may perhaps offend some, and to some extent may lessen his influence or cripple his usefulness. No! the Christ of God was a plain-speaking man; he said: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees! whited sepulchres!" What wonder that he had not where to lay his head!

Or we may apply the same law to the decline of spiritual power. It is an easy and delightful thing to read a paper upon this subject—namely, the decline of spiritual power—but who names the Haman? Who comes down upon the villain with a constable's clutch? What keeps us back?—Fear of offending the world. The world ought to be offended. No worldling should ever have one moment's comfort in the house of God. He should feel that unless he is prepared to change his disposition, he is altogether in the wrong place. He has come to cool himself in a furnace; he has perpetrated the most obvious irony that can possibly occur in all human conduct—a worldly man who wants to love the world has gone to church! It is simply impossible. As a matter of fact, he has gone. We deny it; he is seated within the four walls which are, for convenience' sake, entitled the church. But the worldly man was never at church in his life; if he was, he came out a scorched man, hot all over, hating the minister and detesting the whole place,—unless, indeed, he went, saying, I feel that I am worldly, and I want to be converted; I am listening for words that will help me to begin, under God, a blessed life,—then he was at church, and then he went away thanking God that he had seen heaven opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God with gifts for men.

Then sometimes the adversary and enemy is this wicked Doubt in the heart of the preacher himself. The man is divided. His axe is split across the very edge. There is no power in his right arm. When he speaks he keeps back the emphasis. He knows it, feels it, but he cannot live perhaps without his pulpit. It works like madness in the brain! Why do not men speak just what they think and believe: what they can see with their inner vision and feel with all the sensitiveness of a renewed nature? If we are appointed to preach speculatively, what wonder if we get up in the clouds, and are left there by all common-sense men? Any man so fond of the clouds as to live amongst them ought to be left there. By all means let him enjoy that airy blessedness! But the journalists, the preachers, the schoolmasters, the parents, who have anything to speak to the sphere within which they operate ought to speak with distinctiveness, simplicity, sympathy, kindness, hopefulness, burning earnestness, and let other things of a speculative turn or quality come to show themselves as life unfolds and becomes ennobled.

We might apply the same doctrine to hindrances in the Church:—The adversary and enemy is this wicked cold-hearted man. Whenever he comes into the church the preacher cannot preach: he cannot do many mighty works because that man is there—cold, icy, unresponsive, critical. He will make his minister an offender for a word,—a man who is the victim of grammar, and who never felt the intoxication of a supreme enthusiasm. Nearly every church is wrecked by one man—the cold, ghastly, sepulchral, bony man! Is there no means of getting rid of him? We have seen many a noble young soul quenched, and taking refuge in its little piece of paper called a sermon the moment the man described has come in. We must name him, and those who are in more independent positions than others, if there are such, ought to name him first and to insist upon his being taken out. A thousand men must not have their spiritual education risked by the presence of any one man, though he drive to the church in a chariot of gold and there be six white steeds in its silver-clasped shafts. That man must go! his patronage is a burden, his presence a perpetual difficulty. Name the adversary and the enemy. Do not palter with the occasion. Life is brief, and there is only time to be true. Earnestness will save such definiteness from the vulgarity and folly of rudeness. Be earnest and you will be dignified. Nathan lost nothing of dignity when, looking at the king, he said, "Thou art the man." Paul lost nothing of majesty when, looking at Agrippa, he said, "King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest." Nor did Paul lose anything of moral sublimity when he stood before Felix and "reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come," until the two hearers whitened and quailed. We are not to work in a spirit of mere criticism or fault-finding in our accusations of men and of the age; if we do we shall soon degenerate into exasperation or defiance: we are to accuse with dignity, and to vindicate our charge by the cogency and abundance of our proofs. The Christian Church as a church is to be a witness against every form of evil. We are afraid to name the adversary in church, we confine ourselves to "proper" words, to "decent" expressions, to euphemisms that have neither beginning nor ending as to practical vitality and force. We are the victims of circumlocution; we go round and round the object of our attack, and never strike it in the face. What we want is a definite, tremendous, final stroke. Esther succeeded. Her spirit can never fail.

Reprisals

Esther 7-10

WE have seen Esther in the attitude of lifting the index finger; we have now to consider the attitude of Haman whilst that finger was being pointed at him. The statement is marked by great simplicity, but also by solemn suggestiveness,—

"Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen" (Esther 7:6).

Why was he afraid? Nothing had been stated but simple fact: is it possible that a man can be terrified by being reminded of simple reality? We may go farther in this case, and by going farther may increase our wonder. Could not Haman defend himself? Was it not open to him to say to king Ahasuerus, That is certainly true, but nothing has been done without the king's consent, and no writing has been sent forth that was not sealed with the royal signet: what the queen has said is perfectly true, but I must hide myself behind the king's authority? Not a word did he say: he simply burned with shame; his cheeks were red with fire. How is this? The answer is plain enough. We do many things with the king's signet which we have no business to do. We may be very careful about our little cordon of facts, but all this amounts to nothing so long as the heart accuses itself. No matter what writings you have,—it is of no consequence that you point to conversations, and recall incidents, and remind your interlocutor of certain occurrences, if the thing itself is wrong. There is something in human nature that gives way at the weakest point. There are defences that are in reality accusations. To excuse is in very deed to accuse under such circumstances. Men know this, and yet play the contrary part with great skill and persistence; they say they have documentary evidence, but they do not tell us how they procured it; they can produce letters sealed and signed by high authority, but they never tell the wicked process through which these letters came to be facts. Men, therefore, soon give way under the pressure of incomplete evidence; the unwritten law swallows up all the inky documents. Haman had indeed gone to the king, and told him about a certain people, diverse from the people of Media and Persia, and had in very truth received the king's orders to write letters of destruction; but when all came to all it was the unwritten law that made a coward of Haman. The letters ought not to have been written; being written, they simply amounted to so much evidence against the man; the very motive of the letter burned the letter, and thus made it non-existent; and we are perfectly well aware that we are doing many things, in statesmanship, in ecclesiastical relations, in personal references, that bear very distinctly upon this method of procedure. There are laws, there are facts, there are letters; but all these ought not to have been; they are not in accord with the eternal unwritten law of righteousness, truth, charity, pureness, godliness, and therefore when that is pointed out all the documents fall into the fire, crinkle, blacken, catch the flame, and evaporate in smoke. Thus was Haman afraid before the king and the queen. Cowardice is traceable to consciousness of wrong-doing. Haman said to himself, I got the letters, but I ought not to have got them; I could take off this ring and show it to his majesty, but the ring would take fire and burn me if I held it up under such circumstances; no, I am a murderer, and I am discovered. What then took place?

"The king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life" (Esther 7:7).

That was all! Let me live! Strip me, cast me off, banish me, but—let the poor dog live! All mock royalties come to that, all false ambitions, all ill-conceived plans, all selfishness, all murder. Do not hang me! I care for this poor old neck; I will never speak more, I will only ask for bread and water; only let the dog live! He was a great man just now;

Haman "sent and called for his friends, and Zeresh his wife. And Haman told them of the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king" (Esther 5:10-11).

Now he says, Let the dog live! Let the bad man take care! Judas Iscariot, be on thy guard! Heaven is against thee, and thine own hell hates thee. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." You are very clever, you only are asked to the king's banquet, you are entrusted with the king's seal, you are chancellor, premier, leader,—"Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" The success of bad men is their failure. There is no heaven in their gold; it is not gold, it is gilt. How rich the table is! but Haman cannot eat; the wine is old, but the palate is dead. Walk in the garden and view the lovely flowers: there is no loveliness to eyes of greed, to eyes of ambition, to eyes of selfishness, every Eden is lost by the disobedient man. Do not let me die even in Eden, give me a skin of beast to my back, and let me out of the golden gate—Let the dog live! There are many valiant men whose valour will one day be turned into pale cowardice. Only they are valiant who are right; only they are heroic who love God and keep his commandments; to them death is abolished, the grave a hole filled up with flowers, blossoming at the top. Who would be wicked—prosperously wicked, dining with the king, but wicked; drinking wine with the queen with a murderer's lips? We may be murderers without shedding blood. Every man who has broken a heart is a murderer, it matters not whether he be the highest prelate or supremest minister.

Whatever Ahasuerus did he did quickly. No one ever complained that he was dilatory. Let justice be done to Xerxes. He was a man of action. It was pointed out to him that the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, stood in the house of Haman. The moment Ahasuerus heard there was a gallows he said, Hang Haman. Circumstances happily coincide—here is the victim, here is the gallows: a child may complete the syllogism. It is wonderful how men who have no knowledge of the true God have always discovered a point of almightiness somewhere. Men who had no God, as we understand that term, have always had a deific line in their policy, a black line which meant the end. The Oriental kings realised this ideal of almightiness. Their word was law. Hang him! and no man dare say, Spare him! How could Haman complain? The gallows was his own invention; it was made after his own imagination; it was the very height he liked best for a gallows—not forty-nine cubits high, but the round fifty. How often he had hanged Mordecai on the preceding night! how he had seen the Jew dangle in the air, and almost seen birds of carrion come and alight on his shoulder to look him over with a view to banqueting! How could he complain? This is God's law: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." All this we ourselves must go through. Take care! How much deeper are you going to make that hole? Do you say you mean to make it about ten feet deeper? then be assured that you have ten feet farther to fall. Men dig holes for others, and fall into them themselves. Do not be grave-diggers. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." Our hands were never made for the forging and hurling of thunderbolts; they were made to clasp other human hands, to lead the blind, to help the helpless. Yet who does not rejoice in this law of retribution, worked out on a grand scale, without a sign or token of pettishness in all its evolution? The universe would not be secure without it. The wicked man must be stopped somewhere: and how can a man be more decorously hung than on his own gallows? Is there satire in heaven? Is there just a faint wreathing of sarcasm on the lips of Justice? Do the powers supreme wait until the plans of bad men are quite completed, and then make them cut down the harvest which they themselves sowed in such glee of heart? Bad man, thine end is the gallows-tree! thou shalt surely be hanged by the neck until thou be dead. We see thee at thy front door, well painted, well polished, opening upon museum and picture-gallery and treasure-house; we hear the horses pawing and snorting in their warm stables, and see the servants flitting about in panoramic activity and confusion; we speak to thee over thy bags of gold—thou shalt be damned! Say ye to the wicked, It shall be ill with him: he shall vomit his own successes, and when he is most ashamed it will be when he most clearly sees his triumphs. Say ye to the righteous, It shall be well with thee: poor, desolate, and afflicted, carrying seven burdens when one is enough for thy poor strength; yet at the end, because thou hast loved thy Lord, it shall be well with thee. Do not attempt to explain God's "well." It is a better word than if it had been in the superlative degree. Grammatical increase would mean moral depletion. It is enough that God says, "Well done." "Well" is better than "best" in such setting of words.

From what point did Haman proceed to the gallows? From a banquet of wine. Oh to think of it!—from a banquet to the gallows! There is not such a distance between the two points as might at first appear. Nearly the worst things in all the world are banquets. How a man can live in a mansion-house and pray, is a problem which we can consider even if we cannot answer. It was the rich man in the parable who was called "fool." We should have been sorry for him under that designation if we had not first heard his speech; but after hearing his speech we found that no other word precisely covered the occasion. The house of mourning is better than the house of feasting. There is a sadness which is to be preferred to laughter. There are funerals infinitely more desirable than weddings. But we are the victims of the senses; we like gold and silver, and satin and colour; we rub our skilled fingers over them and say, Behold the texture! see the lustre! admire the beauty! We are blind within. An awful irony, that a man should have eyes to see stones and trees, and no eyes wherewith to see spirits, angels, God! Men drink away their vision; men drown in their cups the divinity that stirs within them.

Is the matter then at an end here? No. Haman's policy must be all reversed.

"On that day did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman the Jews' enemy unto Esther the queen" (Esther 8:1).

Esther had another request to make—"She fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears." Then it was all over! What did she beseech the king to do?

"To put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his device that he had devised against the Jews. Then the king held out the golden sceptre toward Esther. So Esther arose and stood before the king. And said, If it please the king, and if I have found favour in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes [Oh this eloquent tongue! She knew it was all settled before it began], let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews which are in all the king's provinces: for how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?" (Esther 8:3-6).

Pathos will do more than logic. Would God all preachers knew that one simple, practical, eternal lesson! Tears conquer. It was all done. Ahasuerus made gracious reply; the king's scribes were called at the time to write letters of reversal all over the empire—

"To the lieutenants, and the deputies and rulers of the provinces which are from India unto Ethiopia, an hundred twenty and seven provinces, unto every province according to the writing thereof, and unto every people after their language, and to the Jews according to their writing, and according to their language "(Esther 8:9).

It was the beginning of a gospel: Go ye into the provinces, and tell every Jew that he shall live. It was a great speech. There is a greater still made by the Jew whom we call the Son of. God, and worship as God the Son: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," the gospel of pardon, acceptance, adoption, restoration, assured and immortal sonship.

Now will the Jews be merciful? Will they remember that

"Thus the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter, and destruction, and did what they would unto those that hated them" (Esther 9:5).

That is human, but not the less awful. Who can be so bad as man? What beast can be so cruel as an unnatural parent? We have no excuse to offer for these men. If we had been reading a story rather than a history we should have had a different conclusion; we should have made the Jews almost divine: but the Jews were human, and therefore resentful and unforgiving. There is but one Man who can forgive sins.

A wonderful book is this book of Esther! We are told that the name of God does not once occur in it. How fond people are of counting times in which names appear! Observe, it is the name of God that is not in it: God himself is in every line of it. This distinction should be carefully marked by all men who are verbal statisticians, who take note of how many times the name of Christ appears in a sermon. The name of Christ may never be mentioned, and yet Christ may be in the sermon from end to end, the inspiration of its power, the secret of its pathos, the charm of its earnestness. It is but frivolous work to be counting the number of times in which the name of God occurs in this book or that, or the name of Christ occurs in this sermon or in that: is the Spirit Divine there? Is the thought from eternity or from time? Is it a mighty rushing sound from heaven, or is it but a whirlwind carrying nothing with it but thick dust? Men can answer the question well. There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding If God be for us, who can be against us?

"Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed" (Esther 10:3).

What narrow escapes we have in life! How near being hanged was even Mordecai one night! Who can tell what will happen tomorrow? Blessed is that servant who when his Lord cometh shall be found waiting. The faithful servant shall be called up into friendship and honour and coronation. You are in great straits to-day—to-morrow you may have great riches. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." There is a sentimental hope which is never to be trusted; there is a hope which is the blossom of righteousness or the music of reason. Every Christian has the spirit of hope given to him as part of his divine estate: quench not the Spirit. We are not delivered in order that we may crush our enemies; we are not Christians in order that we may slay the heathen; we have not been adopted into God's family that we may go out with a naked sword to cut down every infidel, sceptic, atheist, and unbeliever: we are saved that we may save; we have this honour given to us that we may call others to the same great joy. Let us, if we are delivered men—let us, if we are saved from peril, strait, and sore extremity—let us show our gratitude by our benevolence.

So we part with the brilliant queen, in some respects the Lady Macbeth of her day. The oldest blood of history warmed her veins, and the light of generations of heroes shone in her glorious eyes. She was developed by circumstances. Now she is timid, calculating, half afraid, half ashamed: her courage comes and goes like the blood-tide on fair cheeks, and anon she is as an unquenchable fire. How carefully she laid her finger on the king's pulse! How well she kept the neck of Haman within reach of her crushing heel! She saw wonders, too, in her dreams! Countless hosts of murdered Jews; women begging for pity, and so doubling the very agony they hoped to abate; children speared, and hurled into depths like refuse too vile to waste fire upon: then Mordecai, grey with grief, bowed down with sorrow's invisible burden, and sad with woe never to be all known;—his quivering old life now yielding to despair, and now rising to an impossible hope,—herself, killed, and buried amid oaths and jeers—and Haman, his breast a hell, rejoicing with infernal joy as the last Jew gasped and died. Then the dream changed: a king was approached, interested, mollified; a fair woman grasped a moral sceptre, addressed a heart-speech to a willing ear, transfixed with eloquent finger the prince of villains, and on a morning cool and bright the enemy who plotted the murder of others swung from a gallows fifty cubits high! Thus life hints itself in dreams. Thus in the night we see outlines invisible in the glare of day. Thus, and thus, and thus, the great Spirit comes to establish his infinite purpose. We do not strain the moral of the story by calling for an Esther to stand up in modest courage in the presence of devastating forces—drunkenness, lust, selfishness, oppression, slavery, and all wrong. The Woman must deliver us. She knows the availing method: her tongue is the instrument of eloquence; her eyes see the path that lies through all the darkness; she can mark the time, estimate the forces that are foremost, and strike violently without violence, and mightily without exaggeration. We want no dramatic attitude, no public display, no vaunting ostentation or self-assertion;—we want the might of light, the stratagem of love, the courage of faith, the word of deliverance. Are not women themselves beaten, starved, dishonoured? Are not children cast out, neglected, left to die? Are not lies triumphant, are not honour and truth thrown down in the streets? The true propriety is to be unselfishly sincere, high-minded, fearless,—O that women would take up the sad world's cause and live and die for Christ. When did Jesus discourage the ministry of women? When did he order them home with gruff disdain? Did he not need them all, and make them rich with his blessing?