Ver. 6.-A changed allitude. The priestess has risen from her knees, and appears suddenly transmuted into prosecutrix for herself and her people. The posture of prayer is exchanged for the full-drawn height. The suppliant attitude is replaced in a second by the defiant. Inclining arms, and hands clasped in prayer, are flung wide apart. The extended right hand points a finger of vigorous decision at Haman, that type of monstrous iniquity. The averted eye, shunning him, is to Ahaeuerue, the present object of hope and trust. As one looks on from the distance, the tones scarcely beard just now have risen from suppliant earnestness to the pitch of indig- nant force and unmistaken denunciation. Such the transformation. And one token of genuineness, it was the work of an instant. The explanation of so violent a. con- trast and so rapid a change is the extreme opposite of any native fickleness, of any tendency to infidelity, of ar,y unreality of heart. The opposed appearances are due to one fixed puipose, one imperious necessity, one unalterable religion. In the midst of most unpromising surroundings we seem to see here Ithe long prostrate image of righteousness upraised again. Truth and goodness, oppressed and down-trodden without mercy, recover their standing. There rises in the centre before our vision what might seem a Divinely-sculptured form, for its beauty, its truth of outline, and its suddenness. Let us note some of its suggestions. I. IT STANDS FOB THE PRESENT A SOLITARY TESTIMONY TO REBUKE INIQUITY. Such bas been almost always at the.first, and often for a while, the history of integrity, of truth, of conscience. A unit of these heavenly forms appears. The individual is rai.Bed up. Strength is made perfect in the weakness of one. One has to bear, and hears the brunt. One has to do the work, and does it. One has to set the example, and show the way, and leap into the gulf, and unfurl the banner, and uplift the standard. ONE HANGS UPON THE CBOSB. And there stands here, in the person of Esther denouncing the "wicked adversary Haman," one figure, absolutely alone, testifying rebuke of sin, and of the sin of the mighty. There are few positions more dangerous to the person who takes it than this. The one rebuker of the iniquity of tlie many, or of the powerful, needs to be sure of his cause, and sup- ported by an u~formed conscience ; otherwise he has little to expect from those on whom he visits rebuke. II. THE ATTITUDE OF IT HAS SUCCEEDED IMMEDUTELY TO THAT OF PRAYER. How many of the greatest works have, in point of historical fact, grown out of prayer. They have taken form after the silence and meditation of prayer. They have grown out of the strength given in answer to strong supplication and tears. The !llustra- tious which Scripture offers are many, and are the beacons for us. But the illustra- tions of all history, and of our own lives, far surpass them in number. Ill. IT IB OF THE TYPE OF THE GENTLE AND WEAK AND DEPENDENT, THOUGH FOB ITS WOl!.K ONE WOULD HAVE EXPECTED THE CONTRARY. At any time gentleness has its own proper force, tenderness its peculiar strength, and dependence can often summon a far vaster might to ita service than any independence possesses of itself. But there are times when the feminine and. the tender ia manifestly endowed with an unuaual, en. v11. 1-10.] THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 188
force, and then it to.kes additiono.l o.dvantage from the background of weakness which belongs inherently to it. So now we are the more bound to study the reason of it when we find the eye of this one woman, with an unU&Ual exercise of it, flash- ing a force of conviction which rends in twain the hard, gnarled courage of one of the worst of hearts, and shivers the flint. Tenderness is one thing, and strength another. Yet here we find the type of the one usurping the prerogative of the other, and to almost unequalled advantage. Not only" out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has God perfected praise ; " but often does God choose " the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." And so he brings it to light that it is not the force of man at all which really wine the victory, but the force of his truth, his goodness, his justice, HIMSELF. IV, THIS IS A FORM WHICH DIVIDES 80 MUCH OF THI-: WORLD AS IS IN ITS PRESENCE INTO TWO GREAT PARTS. We have here an humble instance of what the cross of Christ did when it stood betwixt the two other crosses. It showed the world divided into the penitent and the impenitent, the believing and the unbelieving. So now the world is forced into one of two classes: there is he who consents to the judgment of Esther and will execute it, and there is he who is convicted and condemned irre- sistibly by it. The one consents with the deepest emotions, the other suffers con- viction with a fear and trembling that positively incapacitate him from governing his actions or taking the most ordinary precaution. When truth and justice are the vision, the background being really nothing else than the sky, then the immediate consequences to all beholders are either those of consenting sympathy, or of stricken amazement and confusion of face. Seldom was the work of severance better done than by Esther now. Her form seems to bring the whole scene to life again, as though we were there. And the more we gaze, the more we justly wonder at the achievement of the moment, which shows Esther with finger pointed at Haman, and saying, 11 The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman." V. THIS IS THE FORM OF' CONVICTION LEFT MISTRESS OF THE SITUATION. The posi- tion is evidently in many respects more impressive than that which fonnd Nathan confronting David, and saying, "Thou art the man." Na than had a heart not callous, a conscience not lifelong injured, to deal with-those of one man. How different the conditions of Esther's task I What a contrast this moment to the moment when, after the fasting of herself, her maidens, and her people, she presented herself within sight of the despot, nor breathed freely till the golden sceptre was extended to her I Such the change for those who watch and pray, who pray and fight, who know and follow and trust the good that is above. They come to a point sometimes where all seems endangered, but prayer and trust and work convert that very time into the date of an exceeding great moral victory. Up to this time Esther had been a queen but in name ; now she was a queen in deed and of a truth. The form of Esther is n very faint type, but a very true prophecy, of that great victory, which is ever draw ing nearer, which shall show wickedness prostrate, righteousness supreme.-B.