3. The passage admits of easy application to the Church. One portion of the Church may fail to rise to the height of its duty and, in spite of all the splendid hopes which it enshrines, it may perish. But not so the whole Church, or even the particular purpose which that portion was meant to have fulfilled. Eelief and deliverance shall arise to the Church from another place. Men of another sort can be raised up to do the work which we neglected to do.
4. Rehef and deliverance shall arise from another place. So it is certain that God from eternity has willed that all flesh should see His sah'-ation. He loves the heathen better than we do. Christ has died not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. God has made of one blood all nations of men. The race is one in its need. The race is one in its goal. The Gospel is fit for all men. The Gospel is preached to all men. The Gospel shall yet be received by a world, and from every corner of a believing earth will rise one roll of praise to one Father, and the race shall be one in its hopes, one in its Lord, one in faith, one in baptism, one in one God and Father of us all. That grand unity shall certainly come. That true unity and fraternity shall be realized. The blissful wave of the knowledge of the Lord shall cover and hide and flow rejoicingly over all national distinctions. " In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth." This is as certain
538 OPPORTUNITY
I
as the efficacy of a Saviour's blood can make it, as certain as the universal adaptation and design of a preached Gospel can make it, as certain as the oneness of human nature can make it, as | certain as the power of a Comforter who shall convince the world * of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment can make it, as certain as the misery of man can make it, as certain as the promises of God who cannot lie can make it, as certain as His faithfulness who hangs the rainbow in the heavens and enters into an everlasting covenant with all the earth can make it.
This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: — '^ ,
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
A craven hung along the battle's edge,
And thought, " Had I a sword of keener steel —
That blue blade that the king's son bears, — but this
Blunt thing ! " — he snapt and flung it from his hand,
And lowering crept away and left the field.
Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead. And weaponless, and saw the broken sword. Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down. And saved a great cause that heroic day.^
III.
But We shall suffer for It.
"Thou and thy father's house shall perish."
1. Mordecai's precise reference is not absolutely certain : pro- bably he foretells that if the Jews are massacred Esther's Jewish origin will be discovered, and she and her father's house will share the extermination ; or it may be that he merely predicts some indefinite though certain Nemesis.
' Edward Rowland Sill.
ESTHER IV. 14 539
2. Mordecai's principle is for ever true: retribution must ensue upon negligence. We cannot save our lives without at length losing them : they are " destroyed " who leave their duty undone. We need neither define nor describe the destruction. Sometimes it occurs in this life ; at times it takes the form of the overthrow of our temporal possessions; oftener far it manifests itself in open deterioration of character. But God has a hell of fire for the negligent even on this side the veil.
^f I know not what of evil may yet come of the negligence of the Christian Church towards the population with which it is surrounded. Those wretched beings who starve in over-crowded rooms will not die unavenged, if nothing more comes of it than the sin which is begotten of want. If you live in a house well- ventilated and well-drained, and you have near you hovels foul, filthy, dilapidated, over-crowded, when the fever breeds there it will not respect your garden wall; it will come up into your windows, smite down your children, or lay you yourself in the grave. As such mischief to health cannot be confined to the locality in which it was born, so is it with spiritual and moral disease; it must and will spread on all sides. This may be a selfish argument; but as we are battling with selfishness, we may fitly take Goliath's sword with which to cut off his head. You Christian people suffer if the Church suffers; you suffer even if the world suffers. If you are not creating a holy warmth, the chill of sin is freezing you. Unconsciously the death which is all around will creep over you who are idle in the Church, and it will soon paralyse all your energies unless in the name of God you rouse yourself to give battle to it. You must unite with the Lord and His people in winning the victory over sin, or sin will win the victory over you.^