and civil life. The civil power, though severed from the church, may be widely useful to it.

III. All divine ordinances, as well as providential experiences, are channels for the joy of the Lord.

We may be impressed with the evil in the world, and be oppressed by its pain and sorrow; but with the Christian, the contemplation does not end here. The world is God's and the best that could be made, and is a good world.

We are shocked by the calamities that overtake numbers of our fellow-beings. We ought not, however, to pass these impressions to the store-house of memory. They are like many first proofs, very much disfigured. To the Christian, God is all in all. He has not forgotten mercy in judgment. The individual experiences of sorrow may prove to be, and to have been, rivulets of the divine grace. Tears have only cleared the channel for the divine love. We are moved to penitence by the law of God, in order that we may choose thenceforth to love God. We are impressed by the solemn ordinances of God's appointing, and gloom covers the heart only that we may henceforth rejoice in the Lord. In every true revival of relig ion there is a proper use of the ordinances of God, of his word; there is also a turning to righteousness, and there is also spiritual joy.

Is the joy of the Lord your strength? It is not remorse for sin, or sincere penitence, that the soul must rest in. It is not brooding over a misused past. Neither will the troubled soul find peace from sad thoughts of self by turning to the pleasures that subtly offer themselves in this hour of darkness. Your strength is in your peace in Jesus, the joy that his forgiveness and companionship give you,

and in the hopes he sets before you. "These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full;" and his word to you concerning this joy is, "seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you."

66

ESTHER'S PETITION.

ESTHER 4. 10-17; 5. 1-3.

'Again Esther spake unto Hathach, and gave him a message unto

Mordecai," etc.

A BOOK of pictures of Oriental life is always interesting to dwellers in the more prosaic West. This roll, or transcript, as appears from the records of the Persian court, has a peculiar charm. The Rabbi Maimonides claimed that it was superior to all the rest of the Old Testament, save the Pentateuch, and that these only would survive when the Messiah came. It gratifies Jewish pride immensely. The critics tell us, however, that it is in no sense a religious book. They claim that there is no mention of the name of God, no allusion to prayer, or hint of devout feelings in the persons of whom it speaks. There is a class of readers who can see nothing of divine working, hear no petitions, perceive no faith, except they be severally labelled. For such, this history is profane and pointless. It has no place in their "sacred canon above the myths and traditions of the heathen world. Yet a thoughtful mind must be impressed with the fact that here the government of a higher than human ruler asserts itself, in which sin and violence, righteousness and fidelity, receive their appropriate and striking rewards. High tragedy is here, and high accountability.

Jehovah's care for his chosen people has not better illustration in the Book of Joshua. A single lesson from these pages affords but a partial view of the truths and individuals presented. We are not warranted in ranging beyond it.

King Ahasuerus is generally identified with the vain and passionate Xerxes, who, in his disastrous invasion of Greece, could scourge and fetter the rebellious sea, and, sated with all known forms of pleasure, offer a reward to the inventor of a new one.

Esther, the beautiful Jewish maid, fitly called "a star," enjoys the uncertain favor of the proud monarch, and is made his queen. Intrigue, always fostered in the atmosphere of courts, is here busy and mighty. Jealousy and treachery riot on every hand. Life is suffered or taken at the whim. For an offer of gold, the edict of extermination of a whole innocent class in the realm is bought. In city and village, from India even unto Ethiopia, the terrible permit is published, — wherever a Jew is found on a certain day, to slaughter him and his, as they would wild beasts from the mountains. The doomed race are horror-stricken. Their piteous cries, sounding through the land, would have moved any but the most cruel sovereign to revoke the changeless decree. The tidings penetrate the close-shut apartments of the queen. The call of her dearest relative is heard. Now it remains for her to prove her fitness for the high station she holds. She may show herself regal and powerful. It was for her to settle Mordecai's searching query, "Who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

I. We note the fact that every one has some special mis

sion.

This is evident in Esther's case. The maid Hadassah, in her early orphanage in this strange country, had careful guardianship. Family ties were and are strong and sacred among the Hebrews. The adopted daughter was given up in the conscription of fair young virgins for the royal harem. Under the guidance of a hand in which even kings' hearts are, she was preferred above the comely and high-born princesses of the Empire. It was for a great purpose. A Jewess in favor at this critical time had supreme importance. The simple life, but just now finding all its opportunities in the humble duties of the household, suddenly becomes the single life on which that of thousands hang. To the obscure station she comes, but that is not the special mission she has on earth. The millions have that in common with her. Alone, she is appointed to avert the destruction which threatened her people. Is it true that all have some such peculiar charge? The Scriptures do not always show us men and women thus commissioned, though they frequently do, and we discover plainly their particular errand upon which vast results turn. Historians. succeed in singling out of the unknown masses, here and there, one who has magnified or betrayed his trust.

We read of "the decisive battles" of the world, and their commanders; of the dominating philosophies and their masters; of the ruling arts and their teachers; of the controlling religions and their high priests; of the great reforms and their leaders. Yet, these elect ones are but as a handful of sands to the grains which make the shore. For the rest, mere existence seems to be its own end and object; the struggle for survival, the only epic in which they can ever be famous, and in that only such distinction waits as all others have. To breathe, to eat, to laugh, to