The Book of Esther 46
Within it burn a lofty independence and a genuine patriotism.
The story of Esther, glorified by the genius of Handel and sanctified by the piety of Racine, not only affords material for the noblest and gentlest of meditations, but is a token that in the daily events—the unforeseen chances—of life, in little unremembered acts, God is surely present.
When Esther nerved herself to enter, at the risk of her life, the presence of Ahasuerus—‘I will go in unto the king, and if I perish I perish’—when her patriotic feeling vented itself in that noble cry, ‘How can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred’?—she expressed, although she never named the name of God, a religious devotion as acceptable to Him as that of Moses and David.
A. P. STANLEY, 1876.
We search the world for truth; we cull
The good, the pure, the beautiful
From graven stone and written scroll,
From all old flower-fields of the soul;
And, weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our mothers read.
J. G. WHITTIER.