Esther 8:7-14 Then the king Ahasuerus said to Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman… : —The word ones spoken cannot be recalled. The deed once done cannot be undone. The book once issued begins to exercise an influence which cannot be bottled up again, but which must go on operative for evermore. The man who in youth sowed "wild oats" cannot stop the production of the harvest which has sprung from his folly. The hasty-tempered one, whose words sank into the heart of a friend and stabbed him with something keener than a poniard, cannot undo the mischief he has wrought. The author of a vile book may see his folly and lament it, but he cannot catch and confine the influence it exerted, even supposing every copy were to be recalled. You cannot stop the ball after it has left the gun. If you shake the dewdrop from a flower you cannot put it back again. "Don't write there, sir," said a newsboy to a young dandy in the waiting-room of an English railway station, when he saw him take off his ring and begin with the diamond in it to scratch some words upon the surface of the mirror. "Don't write there, sir." "Why not?" "Because you can't rub it out." (W. M. Taylor, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then the king Ahasuerus said unto Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and him they have hanged upon the gallows, because he laid his hand upon the Jews. |
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