HOMILIES BY V.ARIOUS AUTHORS. Vere. 3, 4.-The effe,;t,ual prayer of a true prie,stesa. From the darker side of human nature and its painful suggestions we are glad_ to com~ out to the lig~t and air of its more hopeful aspects. We are able to do this now ~th?ut presumptio!1 or incaution. A brittle thread of hope for the very despondent 1e still a welcome eight to the eyes of those who look on. The plaintive prayer of the opp~eseed is touch- ing not leaE.t to those who !Day hap~en. to overhear. And _the signs of a deep sorrow sinking almost to abJect 11ubm1ss10n, rather than beanng the marks of a Lealthy resignation, will not fail to wake betimes our tenderest sympa~hy. These are the more inviting conditions under which the scene now presen~ itself to us. King Ahasuerus is present, on the grandeur of hie throne, and with the dread OU. VU. 1-10.] THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 131
nuthority of his golden sceptre. But it is not he who is the central figure. Esther is the central figure. Haman also is there, the would-be destroyer of a scattered nation of people, whose head is already bowed in the day of punishment. But the eye_ ~huns h_im, and flees. ~ast hi~ to the vista whic~ shows that same people rev1vmg their hope and hftmg agam the head. And m the background of this s?ene there is one specially hopeful sign. It is not much. t~at can be said at any time to the honour of Ahasuerus, yet we feel somewhat prop1t1ated towards him when we remember that the arbitrary, imperious monarch has waited, and has even asked three times, for the prayer which Esther is now at last about to offer before him. Upon her he is bending a gracious eye, and to her he is lending an attentive ear. Esther has become awhile the priestess of her people. Let us consider her appear- ance in this character. We have from her lips- I. A PRAYER, THE SUDJECT OF WHICH WAS LIFE. The prayer asked for life. It asked the least, for anything less would be of no worth without this being sP-cured first. It asked the least, but what signified everything beside. Esther's prayer told its tale, and told it all, but told it most simply. No general phrases, no hasty sentences ; each word had been weighed, not indeed to produce an artificial, but a transparent effect.. The skill in it was the skill of sincerity and profound earnest- ness alone. There was art in it, but the art of artlessness, not of artfulness. This prayer for just life and breath for herself and the congregation of her people breathes a.tone of wonderful humility, and has an extraordinary promise of c<Yntent in it. The voice of it surely must have faltered through falling tears, or been choked in sobs, when, in the name of all that venerable nation, so long lifted above all nations of the earth, Esther adds that if it had been only a question of bondage, and of selling into such bondage of every man and woman of them, it was not her voice that should have been heard to deprecate, nor her lips that should have been parted in prayer to prevent it. But, she says, the case was one of greater, even of supreme extremity. They were sold-to death. They were sold, in the words of the opportunely-quoted "decree," "to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish." Many dropB of big tears had those words been to an unnumbered multitude of sensitive and high-spirited people; but now were they not for the first time like drops. of molten lead to the hearing of Haman? For him they were hot with terror, heavy with doom, while their effect upon Ahasuerus was electric. Who doeij not feel that a prayer for life must be respectfully listened to, at least ? II. A PRAYER THAT RESTED ON SACRIFICE. Esther does not purport to bring an outer sacrifice. A most real and precious sacrifice she does in fact bring. She was herself the sacrifice, and she knew it full well. Though with modesty, and as mute as could be under the circumstances, she does in a veiled manner utter the fact, and claim the plea.. She pleads, as she had been taught and urged by Mordecai to plead, that she had been raised up by Providence for this hour, and " to this end" had been placed where of late she was found. There are many outer forme of sacrifice, but the principle at work here, and but thinly concealed, is the leading principle invoked in them all. So Esther makes this the plea: "If I have found favour in thy sight, 0 king, and if it please the king." And "if she had found favour," was it not the result of a most real intrinsic sacrifice of self? III. A PRAYER WHICH HAD ll'OR ITS CHIEFEST BURDEN INTERCESSION. Esther was llS 11 merciful" a priestess as she was a skilful one. She lets not go of the argument, the plea, the sacrifice which was found in herself; and she keeps this well in the foreground. But our ear can hear well that her prayer is really intercession. It is "my people" she has ever in sight, ever "deep graven on her heart." Her people's name is kept close linked with her own. She had no thought of permitting them to get separated from her. They and she had the prospect of being about to share and share 11like the "decree," and she takes care to pray and pray alike. Thie was necessary wilh fill the old high priests under the law. Only of Christ was it not true who " needed not to offer a sacrifice first for bis own sins, and then for the people's." But this is the language of, Esther: " Let my life and my people be given me: ... for we are sold, I and my people." 0
IV. A PRAYER WHICH IN MANY RESPECTS IS A SUBLIME TYPE OF THE SOUL S PRAYER TO Goo. Within the four corners of Eether's prayer there are some amazing K2 132 THE BOOK OF ESTHER. [cH. VII. 1-10.
nn~.logies with the prayer of man to God, of the sinner trembling between fear and hope to the Saviour, of the helpless creature stricken with the sense of unparalleled need to the Possessor and Spirit of life. Esther'e prayer is indeed horror to our eam to hear, and grates on eYery highest sensibility of our nature, when (though no fa~lt to her) ~e think of it as addressed to a fellow-creature. But we may now put tl11s out of sight. The postulates of prayer are here-I. In the praying disposi- tion of the suppliant. Here are the deep feeling, the just estimate of the entice.I character of the occasion, the overwhelming sense of the prize of life. There are also to be noticed the natural selection of simplest language, the choice of briefest arguments, and all these held in hand with a self-command almost inconceivable -,mother touch of a true analogy. All these are the things which characterise hea,·enward prayer where intense spiritual importunity exists. 2. In the absolute ownership, the omnipotent power, the sovereign sceptre of the being addressed. These do belong to him whom man addresses in prayer when he pro.ye heavenward. And when these two postulates of prayer meet, rare indeed are the exceptions to that result which in one blessed word we call mercy.-B.