of these she bad II bought up the opportunity" ( redeemed the time), and " when the ocoaeion cnme she wne equal to the occaeiort. '' Wisely use the ;.,re!lent, and when the hour of opportunity comes you will be ready to speak, to etnke, to suffer, or to eave. III. THI!: UNENVIADLENESB OF nANK AND POWER WITHOUT WISDOM. Judging from tho notion of mere worldliness, we should say that Ahasuerue occupied the most enviable position in Persia. As king of that great empire, be held in hie hand all that men ueuo.lly desire. But judging from a distance, impartially, and in the light of God's truth, how little should we care to be such as he was. How unlovely the baste and passion of the man. Hungrily seizing the opportunity of reimbursing his treasury, he makes a decree which would have the effect of slaughtering a race, of ultimately weakening his resources, and of taking the life of his own queen. Happily, but accidentally, in the right mood when the chance is given him of retriev- ing his error, be turns with characteristic passion and precipitancy on his favourite minister, and wreaks vengeance on his bead. Moral littleness in high places is very pitiable. IV. THE UNSUSPECTED RANGE OF OUR ACTIONS IN THEIR EFFECTS. How amazed was Ahasuerus to find that in striking at the Jews be was aiming a blow at his own wife, and so at himself. All our actions, good and bad, stretch further and come closer home than we realise at the time when we do them.-C. Vere. 8-10; viii. 1, 2.-Reversals. Hu.man life is well likened to the river which glides smoothly and evenly along from the spring where it rises to the sea into which it falls. But it is also well compared to the wheel which takes to the bottom that which was at the top, and to the top that which was at the bottom. There is much of orderly and regular procedure; there is much also of change and reversal. Seldom, indeed, does human life present before our eyes the picture of so signal and complete a reversal as that told in the text. Haman, the favourite, the prime minister of state, the all-powerful courtier, the wealthy and strong noble, hanged on the gallows; Mordecai, the despised Jew, whose life was seriously threat- ened, and likely to end most ignominiously, promoted to highest favour and greatest influence with the king. These reversals were not mere accidents ; they illustrate the truths- I. THAT, SOONER OR Ll.TER, SUCCESSFUL SIN WU.L BE OVERTHROWN (vers. 9, 10). We all "see the prosperity of the wicked," as the Psalmist did, and, like him, we are grieved and troubled by it. But we must be like the patient patriarch, and wait to see "the end of the Lord." If we wait long enough we shall find that sin meets with its due award. The guilty empire founded in usurpation and bloodshed, and maintained by violence and corruption, goes down and goes out in ignominy and disaster. The guilty adventurer rears his head for many years, but misfortune and misery overtake him in time. Haman goes to the gallows at last. "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small; With patience he stands waiting, but with exactness grinds he all." The truth is, that sin carries in itself the seeds of its own discomfiture ; these must germinate, and grow, and bear fruit in time. "I have seen the wicked in great power," &c. ; but wait awhile, and "lo, he is not: he has passed away" (Ps. xxxvii. 35). II. THAT, SOONER OR LATER, PERSECUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL TRIUMPH (eh. viii. 1, 2). Haman has gone to the gallows, and now Mordecai takes the chief chair 0£ state. Honesty proves the true policy in the end. Purity, uprightness, integrity, kindness -these have in them the power and prophecy of ultimate success. Let the godly man who is oppressed by iniquity bear his burden, and also his testimony ; let him patiently pursue hie course, looking up and looking cm, and somewhere in the future the crown of a pure success awaits him-if not here, hereafter. ",veeping may endure for a night "-possibl;y a long night-but "~oy comes in the mo_rni?g." It may be the morrow of the distant future, but it will then be the begmnmg of a cloudless and endless day. III. THAT BIN CONTINUALLY SUFFERS FROM ITS OWN HAND. "They banged Haman 140 THE BOOK OF ESTHER. [OH. vm. 1-17.
on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai" (ver. 10). Into the very trap he laid for another hie own foot falls. We learn-1. That sinfre<Juemly bri,ngs on itself the very eval it ~ for others. A man bent on ruinmg another (by legal measures, or unfair under-selling, &c.) often impoverishes himeelf. A man in his wrath goes out to slay, and is himself the slain one. The accuser of others is con- demned by others, e.nd suffers ~enere.1 reprobation. 2. That sin invambly suffers as the consequence of the e:ui,l which it does. If it does not endure the very evil it deeigns, it does bear its penalty. No me.n ce.n hurt another without being hurt himself. The chief victim, the principal sufferer from sin, is the sinner. Every act of evil, every thought of sin, m:fl.ict.s e. damaging wound, more or Iese obvious, in the breast of the evil-doer, in the bee.rt of the sinner. Contrast with thie stem truth the obverse- 1V. THAT GOODNESS ALWAYS BLESSES THE AGENT AS WELL AS THE OBJECT, It is not mercy only, but every kind of work, that "blesses him the.t gives e.nd him that takes." "Give, e.nd it she.11 be given unto you." "He the.t watereth shall himself be watered. "-C.