somewhat to the gratification and benefit of others, by adverting to another Scriptural story, which has not so often been brought into notice for the illustration of a doctrinal point, as I think it will be found to have deserved-I allude to the beautiful episode, as it may with propriety be called, of the Book of Esther.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

No one can have read the Book of Esther without admiration, and as "all Scripture is given for our learning," so should the conduct of the Jewish Queen, under circumstances of the utmost delicacy and danger, serve as another conspicuous pattern of that due precaution, which ought never to be separated from a pious resignation to events, and the humblest submission to the Divine Will. Wonderfully elevated above all other women by the greatest monarch upon earth, her rank as Queen, far from bereaving her of her discretion, seems to have left her in full possession of this most valuable ornament of the amiable qualities of her heart. She saw, in the misfortunes of her predecessor, the instability of that dazzling and giddy eminence to which she had herself been raised, and she naturally shrunk, at first, from the proposal of Mordecai to appear unbidden in the King's presence.

"The character of Esther, as it is given in both books that bear her name, has ever appeared to me," says Sir R. K. Porter, "one of the most lovely pictures of female perfection; a beautiful example of female

heroism without any of that hardness of feature which gives the idea of an Amazon. She exhibits the most heroic self-devotion in the cause of her unhappy nation, mixed with all the attractive softness of feminine delicacy and tenderness of heart. She shrinks from the act of exposing herself to the open shame of the violent death she yet steadily resolves to dare, for the magnanimous purpose of saving her people from the execution of the decree pronounced against them. Thus with all the natural and becoming apprehensiveness of a delicate woman, trembling at the thought of her blood being shed by a private or public executioner, she warns Mordecai of the danger she must incur in preferring her petition. She implores him to pray that the penalty may be averted, whilst she declares herself determined to run the desperate risk: Go,' said she, 'gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night nor day; I also, and my maidens, will fast likewise. And so will I go in unto the King, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish."

Such is Sir R. K. Porter's just and elegant encomium on the character of Esther, which a visit to what is supposed to be her tomb and that of Mordecai, suggested; a visit of so much interest, that I am tempted to indulge in some further extracts from a work, the expensive size of which may have prevented

"The

its getting into general circulation. He is writing from Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, when he says, Jewish part of the inhabitants with whom I conversed, entered with a solemn interest into the questions I put to them, respecting the sepulchre of Esther and Mordecai, the dome roof of which rises over the low, dun habitations of the poor remnant of Israel, stili lingering in the land of their captivity. This tomb is regarded, by all the Jews who yet exist in the empire, as a place of particular sanctity; and pilgrimages are still made to it at certain seasons of the year in the same spirit of holy penitence, with which, in former times, they turned their eyes towards Jerusalem. Being desirous of visiting a place which Christians cannot view without reverence, I sent to request that favour of the priest under whose care it is. He came to me immediately, and seemed pleased with the respect manifested towards the ancient people of his nation, in the manner in which I asked to be admitted to his shrine."

"I accompanied him through the town, over much ruin and rubbish, to an enclosed and somewhat elevated piece of ground. In the centre was the tomb, a square building of brick, of a mosque-like form, with a rather elongated dome at the top. The whole seemed in a decaying state. The door that admitted us into the tomb is in the ancient sepulchral fashion of the

country, very small, consisting of a single stone of great thickness, and turning on its own pivots from one side. Its key is always in the possession of the head of the Jews resident at Hamadan, and doubtless has been so kept from the time of the holy pair's interment, when the grateful children of the captivity, whose lives they had rescued from universal massacre, first erected a monument over the remains of their benefactors, and obeyed the ordinance of gratitude in making the anniversary of their preservation a lasting memorial of Heaven's mercy, and the just faith of Esther and Mordecai.

"So God remembered his people (saving them from the conspiracy of Haman), and justified his inheritance. Therefore these days shall be unto them, in the month Adar, the 14th and 15th day of the month, with an assembly and joy, and with gladness before God, according to the generations for ever among his people.'-Apoc. B. of Esther, ch. x. 12, 13. The pilgrimage yet kept up, is a continuation of this appointed assembling'; and thus, having existed from the time of the event as a memorial of it, becomes more convincing evidence perhaps of the fact than even written testimony; it seems a sort of eye-witness. The original structure is said to have been destroyed at the sacking of the place by Timour; and, soon after that catastrophe, the present unobtrusive building was