regard shown to women in this period of the world among Oriental races, but this one incident shows that women were held no cheaper than men. Human beings were cheap. The massacre of hundreds of thousands was negotiated in an easy, off-hand way, just as a gardener ordains exterminating sulphur for the green bugs on his plants. The king answered to Haman, "The silver is given thee, and the people also, to do as seemeth to thee good."

Then, says the story, "the king's scribes were called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded, and the letters were sent by post into all the provinces, to destroy and to kill and cause to perish all Jews both old and young, little children and women, in one day, of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, to take the spoil of them for a prey. The posts went out, being hastened by the king's commandment, and the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Shushan was perplexed." And when Mordecai heard this he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went into the midst of the city, and came even before the king's gate, for none might enter into the king's gate clothed in sackcloth.

The Oriental monarch was supposed to dwell in eternal bliss and joyfulness; no sight or sound of human suffering, or weakness, or pain must disturb the tranquillity of his court; he must not even suspect the existence of such a thing as sorrow.

Far in the luxurious repose of the women's apartments, sunk upon embroidered cushions, listening to the warbling of birds and the plash of fountains, Esther the queen knew nothing of the decree that had gone forth against her people. The report was brought her by her chamberlain that her kinsman was in sackcloth, and she sent to take it away and clothe him with costly garments, but he refused the attention, and persisted in his mourning. Then the queen sent her chief chamberlain to inquire what was the cause of his distress, and Mordecai sent a copy of the decree with a full account of how and by whom it had been obtained, and charging her to go and make supplication to the king for her people. Esther returned answer: "All the king's servants do know that whosoever, man or woman, shall come into the king in the inner court, who is not called, there is one law to put them to death, except those to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre that he may live, but I have not been called to appear before the king for thirty days."

We have here the first thoughts of a woman naturally humble and timid, knowing herself one of the outlawed race, and fearing, from the long silence of the king, that his heart may have been set against her by the enemies of her people. Mordecai sent in reply to this a sterner message.

"Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another quarter, but thou and thy father's house shall be cut off; and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

And Esther sends this reply: "Go, gather together all the Jews that are in Shushan, and fast ye for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day; and I and my maidens will fast likewise. And so I will go in unto the king, which is not according to law; and if I perish, I perish."

There are certain apocryphal additions to the book of Esther, which were supposed to be the efforts of some romancer in enlarging upon a historic theme. In them is given at length a prayer of Mordecai in this distress, and a detailed account of the visit of Esther to the king.

The writer says that though she carried a smiling face, "her heart was in anguish for fear," and she fell fainting upon the shoulder of her maid. Our own account is briefer, and relates simply how the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, and she obtained favour in his eyes, and he held out the golden sceptre, and said to her, "What wilt thou, Queen Esther, what is thy request? and it shall be given thee, even to half of the kingdom?"

Too prudent to enter at once into a discussion of the grand subject, Esther seeks an occasion to study the king and Haman together more nearly, and her request proves only that the king and Haman would come that day to the queen's apartments to a private banquet. It was done, and the king and Haman both came. At the banquet her fascinations again draw from the king the permission to make known any request of her heart, and it shall be given-even to half of his kingdom.

Still delaying the final issue, Esther asks that both the king and his minister may come to a second banquet on the morrow.

Haman appears to have been excessively flattered at this attention from the queen, of whose nationality he was profoundly ignorant; but as he passed by and saw Mordecai in his old seat in the king's gate, "that he stood not up, neither moved for him," he was full of indignation. He goes home to his domestic circle, and amplifies the account of his court successes and glories, and that even the queen has distinguished him with an invitation which was shared by no one but the king. Yet he says, in the end, all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting in the king's gate.

His wife is fruitful in resources.

"Erect a gibbet," she says,

"and to-morrow speak to the king, and have Mordecai hanged, and go thou merrily to the banquet." And the thing pleased Haman, and he caused the gallows to be made.

On that night the king could not sleep, and calls an attendant, by way of opiate, to read the prosy and verbose records of his kingdom-probably having often found this a sovereign expedient for inducing drowsiness. Then, by accident, his ear catches the account of the conspiracy which had been averted by Mordecai. "What honour hath been shown this man?" he inquires; and his servants answered, there is nothing done for him.

The king's mind runs upon the subject, and early in the morning, perceiving Haman standing as an applicant in the outer court he calls to have him admitted. Haman came, with his mind full of the gallows and Mordecai. The king's mind was full, also, of Mordecai, and he had the advantage of the right of speaking first. In the enigmatic style sometimes employed by Oriental monarchs, he inquires:

"What shall be done with the man whom the king delighteth to honour?"

Haman, thinking this the preface to some new honour to himself, proposes a scheme. The man whom the king delights to honour shall be clothed in the king's royal robes, wear the king's crown, be mounted on the king's horse, and thus be led through the streets by one of the king's chief councillors, proclaiming-"This the man whom the king delighteth to honour."

"Then said the king-Make haste, and do even so as thou hast said unto Mordecai the Jew that sitteth in the king's gate. Let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken." And Haman, without daring to remonstrate, goes forth and fulfils the king's command, with what grace and willingness may be imagined.

It is evident from the narrative that the king had not even taken the trouble to inquire the name of the people he had given up to extermination any more than he had troubled himself to reward the man who had saved his life. In both cases he goes on blindly, and is indebted to mere chance for his discoveries. We see in all this the same passionate, childish nature that is recorded of Xerxes by Herodotus when he scourged the sea for destroying his bridge of

boats.

When Haman comes back to his house after his humiliating public exposure, his wife comforts him after a fashion that has not passed out of use with her.

"If that Mordecai," she says, "is of the seed of the Jews before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shall surely fall before him."

And now Haman and the king and Esther are once more in a

secluded apartment, banqueting together. Again, the king says to her, "What is thy request, Esther?"

The hour of full discovery has now come. Esther answers:"If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition and my people at my request. For we are sold, I and my people, to be slain and to perish. If we had only been sold to slavery, I had held my tongue."

Then the king breaks forth-"Who is he, and where is he that durst presume in his heart to do so?"

And Esther answered, "The adversary and enemy is the wicked Haman!"

Then Haman was afraid before the king and queen, and he had the best reason to be so.

The king, like an angry lion, rose up in a fury and rushed out into the gardens. Probably at this moment he perceived the net into which he had been drawn by his favourite. He has sent orders for the destruction of this people, to whom his wife belongs and for whom she intercedes. Of course he never thinks of blaming himself, but is in a foam of indignation at his minister.

Haman, white with abject terror, falls fainting at the feet of Esther upon the couch where she rests, and as the king comes raging back from the gardens he sees him there.

"What! will he force our queen also in our very presence?" he

says.

And as the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face. All is over with him, and an alert attendant says: "Behold the gallows, fifty cubits high, that he made to hang Mordecai, the saviour of the king's life."

Then said the king, "Hang him thereon!"

Thus dramatically comes the story to a crisis. Mordecai becomes prime minister. The message of the king goes everywhere, empowering the Jews to stand for their life, and all the governors of provinces to protect them. And so it ends in leaving the nation powerful in all lands, under the protection of a queen and prime minister of their own nation.

The Book of Esther was forthwith written and sent to the Jews in all countries of the earth, as a means of establishing a yearly commemorative festival called Purim-from the word Pur, or the lot. The festival was appointed, we are told, by the joint authority of Mordecai the Jew and Esther the Queen. And to this day we Gentiles in New York or Boston, at the time of Purim, may go into the synagogue, and hear this Book of Esther chanted in the Hebrew, and hear the hearty curses which are heaped, with thumps of hammers and of fists, at the mention of the name of Haman

and his sons-a strange fragment of ancient tradition floated down to our modern times. The palace of Shushan, with its hangings of green, and blue, and purple, its silver couches, its stir and hum of busy life, is now a mouldering ruin; but the fair woman that once trod its halls is remembered and honoured in a nation's heart. It is a curious fact that the romantic history of Esther has twice had its parallel since the Christian era, as the following incidents from Schudt's "Memorabilia of the Jews" witnesses. In this rare and curious work-4th book, 13th chapter-he says:

"Casimir the Great of Poland in 1431 fell in love with a beautiful Jewess named Esther, whom he married and raised to the throne of Poland. He had by her two sons and several daughters. His love for her was so great that he allowed the daughters to be brought up in their mother's religion.

"Also it is related that Alphonso VIII., King of Spain, took to himself a beautiful Jewess as a wife. On account of her, he gave such privileges to the Jews that she became an object of jealousy to the nobles, and was assassinated."

The Book of Esther fills an important place in the sacred canon, as showing the Divine care and protection extended over the sacred race in the period of their deepest depression. The beauty and grace of a woman was the means of preserving the seed from whom the great Son of man and desire of all nations should come. Esther held in her fair hand the golden chain at the end of which we see the mother of Jesus.

The "Prayer of Esther" is a composition ascribed to her, and still in honoured use among the solemn services of the synagogue.

ANDREW MARVEL AND HIS FRIENDS.

A STORY OF THE SIEGE OF HULL.

BY MARIE HALL, née SIBREE.

Author of "Sermons from the Studio,'
," "The Sculptor of Bruges," &c.

CHAPTER XII.-ALICE'S DIARY.

December 31st, 1640.-Winestead.-Father asked me this morning if I was having a happy time of it. I said that sometimes it was very pleasant indeed; but I thought that home would seem a sweet place when we got back again.

"And why?" said he; "is it not all pleasant? 'Tis true the