The Pulpit Commentary — Esther — Section 93

and it would lrnvc been unreasonable to exact that it should have been foreseen, .Ae matter of fact, Mordecai's stored memory might possibly have been able to produce historical instances of atrocities in their outside like the present. But even then not as the result of the offence of one unimportant individual offered to ~ne courtier'. The hand of Mordecai had indeed touched a spring which set going unexpected machinery of fearful kind to unexpectedly threatening effect. But the touching of that spring was not an idle act. It was not an accidental or an inquisitive act. It was better even than an innocent act. For it was right and brave, and full of moral C'ourage. Of the many times we find ourselves involved in perplexity, in unexpected danger, how often can we say as much as this? 2. It was one involving the ten- derest C'onsiderations. Apprehensions were indefinitely intensified by the interests of inc_alcul_able moment whi~h were known to be concern~d. Hearts inexpressibly dear, hves mnumerable, and mvested now more than ever with an awful and mysteri- ous sacredness, were in question. These were the very things to unedge discern- ment and to unnerve purpose. 3. It was an occasion, the whole weight of which showed now as if gathering into one bulk, and moving over the head and anxious heart of one woman. It is apparent throughout, even when Mordecai seems to urge Esther, and not to pity, that her one, her only unresting desire was to know the right.est, best course to take. She was already a gilded victim, a captive bird that had ever most of all loved freedom, a prisoner in fetters, not less fetters because each link was of wrought gold. How could she tune her harp, and sweep its strings, and sing her song in that strange place ? Yet he who loved her dearest and most prized all that she was, helpless to resist the rapacity of those who rifled his honest threshold, kept as near as possible to that prison of a palace, that it was, which held her ( eh. ii. 11 ). He found in his heart the undying seed of some faith, and some inexplicable hope, that there was possibly a reason in it all, and a use for it all, and that " somehow good would be the final goal of ill " so hard to bear. In all the in- imitable brevity of Scripture, what a tale of love and loss, and of the hanging on to uncertain hope, escapes from within these fewest words I .And was it she, the object of this tender solicitude, who was competent to bear the overhanging load of respons- ibility, and the brunt of blame, in case of failure? Stouter hearts and of sterner stuff than all with which we can credit Esther would collapse before the prospect. 4. It was an occasion distracted by aggravating contradictions. If all is to depend on Esther, as she is now urged to believe, there was every motive for action, but over- whelming reasons for inaction. Love, apparent duty, urgent expostulation, the pressure of beloved command, the impetus of long habits of obedience, all pointed one way, and said one thing. But it was not the merely slothful man's lion in the way that bid her beware of that way, and think of another. No; it was reason, by the dictates of which men not only rightly act, but also rightly abstain from acting. It was calmness of judgment, the more to be admired because the circumstances were enough to unbalance almost any judgment. It was matter of knowledge with Esther, and of universal consent in addition, that the peril was what none but the madman, or the desperate, or the extremity of despair itself would dare to face. Can this be defended then as just ground for moral action, when there are ten thousand chances against you, and what you endanger is your all ? There can be no doubt as to the right answer to this, except for the occasion, the emergency of which lies in the fact that some advance must be made. Those passages of life, far from unknown to us, which are of this kind still present the most trying problems of our whole history. 1 II. THE EXACT POSITION WHICH THE INSTRUCTOR TOOK. 1. It was one that seemed hard that inclined to the unfeeling. This is exactly what a teacher's position must not ~equently seem, seem without being so. Even to those who overhear, his tones sound sharp and quick, just as those of Mordecai do now to UB, We must do justice to Mordecai. We may justly suppose that he knew the circumstances pre- cisely the mental character of Esther precisely, the precise point of the dangerous way ~here she would need a moment's quick help, the momentary stimulus of the master's sharp summons, lest she should yield. "Even as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty." Mordecai knew that history, and dared not take for granted that his Esther was better, safer, stronger than God's Eve. The lu~ttrious palace of Persia en. 1v. 1-17.] THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 'J7