acts of cruelty, to
promote that despotism which may banish the remembrance of their
enormities, and to dazzle and blind the eyes of their people by the
glare and splendour which surrounds their court. And thus these guilty
monarchs, by the patronage of the licentious festivals of heathen
worship and the alluring rites of a corrupt religion, compelled their
people to sin. They drowned the voice of conscience and prevented all
reflection.

All history has shown us that, as nations have been verging to their
ruin, they have yielded themselves to criminal excess and sensual
indulgence; and the boasted periods of splendour and high refinement
have been but the preludes to long seasons of national calamity or
entire overthrow. Thus we may suppose it to have been with the ancient
descendants of Israel. The courts were splendid and all the arts were
patronized, while the thin veil of refinement was thrown over deeply
corrupt manners. The people, departing from a holy faith, were sinking
into a sullen debasement, or giving themselves to sensual indulgence
and brutal ferocity.

Modern nations have followed in the footsteps of the ancient world. The
same idols are still worshipped under other names--the same passions
rule the unholy heart.

[Illustration]

ESTHER.

[Illustration]

When Isaiah wrote, Babylon sat a queen among the nations, in the pride
of pomp and power, in the full security of strength; yet he graphically
depicted her desolation and foretold her present state, while he
pronounced her doom--a perpetual desolation. She shall never be rebuilt!
Her towers are fallen and her site marked by ruins.

The decline of Babylon had begun. It was certain, although slow. Years
were to pass before the sentence should be fully executed. At the
period, when the transactions recorded in the book of Esther took place,
Shushan was the royal city of Persia. We are told that in this--the City
of Lilies--the king Ahasuerus held a great feast, probably in
celebration of some recent success, or in commemoration of some great
national event. He assembled all the princes and nobles of his vast
empire, extending from Egypt to India, and gave a feast or succession of
festivities, which continued for more than the third of a year.

All that oriental splendour and magnificence could contribute, all the
expedients that eastern luxury could desire, to multiply the resources
and to heighten the enjoyment of pleasure, were brought