rules and laws by which the race of man is governed.

The ambitious conqueror who planned the ruin of empires and violated the first rules of justice and truth in his wild career, sunk himself before courts where justice was denied him, and his own ruin completed. It was no accident. It was the working of GOD as much as was the gallows of Haman. The tyrant who hurried off hundreds unprepared to eternity by the planned assassination or the secret execution -died without time to say, LORD, forgive me. It was the direct retribution of heaven. The cruel device of overbearing power was subverted by the entreaties and influence of a woman, a wife, and a mother. The plan was counselled in heaven, and the eloquence of the pleading received its efficacy from God Himself.

The extermination of a whole people has been planned-the sudden death of the schemer, an adverse wind, a flash of lightning has hindered its execution. The decree has gone forth, and a race has fallen except one, a child, who escaped destruction-a boy who gallantly defended himself, or an infant in the arms of his nurse. But the one who escaped was sufficient to defeat the design of

the murderers by resuscitating the almost extinct race, or living to wreak vengeance on the head of the designer. The decree has gone forth to slay, but a flaw in a clause, or the conscientious qualms of the executioner or an accomplice, has hindered the entire design. All this seems singular coincidence, it is the direct order of GOD.

These may be regarded as platitudes, but there is more special significance in them than may appear. We do not fully recognize the Divine mind: we are surprised, and stand astonished: we use expressions which show that we are not fully prepared to recognize a particular providence in all human events.

2. Among the characters which stand out in this sacred tale, I will take that of Esther, as the one furnishing us with the most striking lessons. Like Daniel of old, she was raised up to benefit and aid her people by occupying a position in the house of a heathen king. She had to conform to much which was externally connected with the customs and habits of an

alien people. Her own predilections must have been often violated and her conscience perplexed, still she did her work; she fulfilled her great mission, and has left a memorial great

and illustrious among women. She was the adopted child of Mordecai, who had come up with the captives from the Holy Land, and occupied some post at the palace of Ahasuerus, probably that of a porter at the gate. She seems after her elevation to her position at the court of the king to have been admitted to the higher privileges of the wife of the king.

Her character is brought before us with many touches of great beauty and force. Her strong affection for her adopted father after her elevation; her regard for her people, the Jews; the energy with which she did her work; her breaking through her own natural awe at approaching the king unbidden; and her fasting with her maidens that her intercession may avail the more, are all traits of that mixture of female delicacy and shrinking modesty coupled with determined courage and heroic constancy in the day of trial, which strikes us with pleasure and admiration when we see it. She has little of the masculine and visionary enthusiasm of Deborah, or the stern energising simplicity of Jael, while she has an affection and devotion, a clinging tenacity of constancy to the cause which she feels to be her own, which ranks her with Ruth, though a higher class of

circumstance and result called forth her energy and gave the form to her character. There is an undoubted loveliness about her character throughout, and we feel we are gazing at one who not only is allowed to stand prominent among the people of GOD, but amongst all those who are ever honoured and beloved of man.

There can be little doubt that her position is also allegorical. Like Sarah, Rachel, and Ruth, she resembles the Church of GOD in some phase of its existence, its struggles and trials. Her similarity is clear. One of the chosen race cast in the days of captivity among the people and customs of the world, she exercised her influence for GOD and the protection of His people.

The Church advocates, pleads, warns, and suffers for God's people, to screen them from false accusation, and to subvert the machinations of the wicked: so did Esther. Her calm patient suffering, her gentle influence prevailed with her husband, and she saved her people from ruin. In the fastnesses of the palace, in fact her prison, she conferred with Mordecai, and her fast and prayers in her chamber, followed and preceded her communication. She was a captive in a strange land. She had to

But

sing the song of Zion in the heathen court. the day of her delivery was at hand, when the machinations of the wicked were to fall on their own head, and the gallows of Haman receive their inventor.

With this view of Esther's position an additional lustre is shed on her character, and new force is given to her relationship which justifies a calm and reverent contemplation of the practical and consoling lessons which she suggests. The first of these is at once discernible to those who are placed in similar positions.

3. None or few now are likely to be called upon to serve GOD in the heathen court or household: still, many are called upon to exercise their duties among those who are severed from them in principles and opinions. Men and women are often compelled to be inmates of homes whose fashions ill accord with their own views of right, or to perform offices for or in conformity with those from whom they are separated in the house of GOD. The very differences which exist Christendom alone necessitate this, and the wife or child may be compelled to dwell with and love those who recognize the claims of another communion, or who are themselves outside the limits of the visible Ca