A MEDITATION ON

THE STORY OF ESTHER.

BY THE REV. CHARLES B. TAYLER.

IF I perish I perish-my purpose is fixed-my mind is made up. I will stand or fall by this act, and stake my

life upon the event. Such was the decision to which this

young, and delicate, and royal lady had come. She was the queen of a mighty empire-the beloved wife of the greatest monarch on the earth; for his empire extended from Judea to Ethiopia, and he reigned over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, but she was also a child of God, and her people were the chosen people of the Eternal God; and they were not only in captivity, but they were doomed to die—the sentence of a most cruel and unjust execution had been past upon them, and the order had gone forth, sealed with the royal signet of the king, that in one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, every Jew in the provinces of the empire, both young and old, little children and women, should be put to death.

This was the stake for which the young and beautiful queen was resolved to venture her life, and to go in unto the king in direct opposition to the law of the Medes and Persians. There was one hope for her, and one alternative. If the king held out to her the golden sceptre, her life was safe; but if he did not, and if she did not find favour in his sight, death was the inevitable consequence of her rash deed. Therefore she said, “I will go in unto the king, which is not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish."

This gentle lady was the Jewess Hadassah, or, as she was afterwards called, Esther, and the king her husband, called in the Holy Bible, Ahasuerus, is supposed to have been Artaxerxes Longimanus the same who granted permission to Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalemwon over, probably, to the honour and reverence of the true God by the wise and holy influence of his godly queen and her kinsman Mordecai. The words of this monarch seem to be recorded by Ezra, (chap. vii. 23,) "Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven, for why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his son?"

The Jews were indeed in a situation of imminent danger. Mordecai, the uncle of Esther, had given deadly

offence to Haman, the favourite of the king, who had been promoted above all the princes that were with him. But though the king had commanded that all should bow and pay reverence before Haman, Mordecai, whose office it was to sit in the king's gate, bowed not, nor did him reverence. Haman was an Agagite descended probably from Agag, a name common to the kings of Amalek. He was one of that accursed race whom God had forbidden His people to have any communication with, on account of their heartless cruelty in attacking His people, the children of Israel, at Rephidim, when feeble and worn out with thirst and weariness. They were the race whom Saul had been commanded to put to death with unsparing severity.

To this Agagite-to this Haman-Mordecai would not bow down, nor do reverence, for Mordecai was a Jew, and reverence, little short of divine worship, was probably commanded to be paid to Haman. And besides this, Haman was himself a proud bad man, as all his subsequent conduct fully proved.

But the great and living God watched over his own people with especial care. They were, alas, even at that time, a nation scattered and peeled, and under a judicial blindness, brought upon them by their own sinful idolatry and ingratitude.

They were then banished from their

own glorious land, and scattered abroad throughout the vast empire of the Persian king; but they were also at that time, as they are now, a standing miracle both of God's wrath in their judicial blindness, and of God's love in the rich clusters of promises which belong first and foremost to them, which shall all be fulfilled when they shall turn unto the Lord, and when the veil shall be taken from their heart. Although they are now scattered among all nations, they are not, they never have been, they never will be destroyed. The time will come to comfort Zion, the time when the natural branches shall be grafted into their own olive tree, and so all Israel shall be saved. Blessed is every one that blesseth them, and cursed is every one that curseth them; it is the same also with all God's own elect or chosen ones, whether Jew or Gentile. Wherever they may be dispersed, in whatever part of Christ's church on earth they may be found, will assuredly be gathered, as wheat into the garner, in His good time; not one holy Jew will be finally lost-not one will be overlooked or forgotten. They shall never perish, and none shall pluck them out of the Father's hands. They are His own especial care now, and "they shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels with the Lord of Hosts, and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him."

R

Mordecai was evidently one of God's elect children, and his strong faith must not be overlooked. He knew that the Lord's promise had been given, and that it could not fail; and in the glorious faith of an experienced child of God, he had sent forth this message to his royal and beautiful niece. "If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from some other 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?" We have all an appointed calling. It is not by chance that

any one among us occupies a peculiar station. From the queen upon her throne, to the lowest of her subjects, each one among us has his duties to perform, according to the calling and the sphere where God has placed him.

Queen Esther was a gentle, delicate woman, but she was a true heroine. She had all the natural timidity and fearfulness of her sweet sex; but she had grace and courage to overcome her fearfulness and her doubts, and the dread and terror of the death which awaited her, in case the king should be angry at her intrusion to his presence. For thirty days she had not been called to come in unto the king. The loveliness and the sweetness which had won for her his affection, might have lost its influence with its novelty. He might, perchance, have