Esther 4:14 For if you altogether hold your peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place… It has been observed that with every great emergency God has raised up a man equal to the emergency. As God called Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Elijah, David, and Daniel for a special work, so He called Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, Washington and Lincoln. As God inspired Bezaleel to invent cunning works, so to-day He raises up such men as an Edison to solve and use mysterious forces of nature. Every age and every emergency has had the men needed for the age and the emergency. The apostles met the demand of their age. The Church Fathers did a peculiar work for which they were fitted. Luther came upon the scene just when needed. This is also true of all great men who have become the world's leaders and saviours. I have spoken of man, but what has been said of him is equally as true of woman. She may not have been so conspicuous a figure, but she was none the less important. When Samuel's mother consecrated her boy to the service of Jehovah; had she no part in determining the destiny of Israel? When the mother and grandmother instructed young Timothy in the Scriptures, did they have no part in the establishment of the Apostolic Church? When Martha and Mary made a home for the Saviour, a place where He could lay His head, did they not perform an important part? When the mother of taught and conversed with him about Scriptures, did she not do much toward making Augustinian confessions possible? The mother of Alfred the Great was his first teacher and always his most trusted counsellor. The mother of Henry VII. of England did more than her royal son for the dissemination of learning and the establishment of colleges. The rise of Methodism goes back beyond John or Charles Wesley to their noble mother. Who familiar with the life of Herschel and his sister can doubt that much of his greatness rests upon her co-operation and untiring labour? The name of Joan of Arc suggests what woman can do on the field of war. Of every woman mentioned it might be said, "Thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this." The breadth of woman's influence is widening. She is the strongest social force of to-day. Life is her key-board which she may sweep with a master's touch if she will. To woman all doors are open. She may enter and win her bread without being touched by snobbishness and caste. The entrance of woman into the various occupations has had the tendency to stop the growing boorishness which was manifesting itself in business circles. It is slowly but surely leading men to recognise the one great work of life not to be money getting, but character building. She is giving a shading to the values of life; hence we are beginning to place things more nearly where they belong. In temperance reform woman has been, and is still, the leader. Time and again she has undergone the scoffs of rowdies and the ridicule of pot-house politicians, but feeling that God called her to the kingdom for such an hour as this, she has risked popularity and society influence in defence of home and children. The most important work in all this widening field of woman's activity is the evangelisation of the world. It is of God. It touches man's deepest need. It brings him the blessings of a Christian civilisation and the assurance of life eternal. It is therefore the highest service woman can enter into. There is nothing that will yield greater joy or larger returns. (W. C. Burns, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews 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? |
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