fortunate one might decide the day to be chosen
for the work of death on which he was bent. And this accomplished, he
hastened to secure the edict from the king. Surely the monarch must have
been sunk in wine and debauchery who could thus unhesitatingly accede to
the proposition to murder, in cold blood, thousands of unresisting
subjects, when the worst allegation preferred by their enemy was "that
their laws were diverse from all people." Yet here was the very
principle of religious persecution; and as sanguinary edicts as these,
enacted against God's ancient people, have been too often issued in more
modern days, and no Mordecai has sat at the gate of the palace, mutely
to plead for mercy--no Esther has staked her life upon the attempt to
avert the doom!

By the offer of an enormous bribe, to be collected from the plunder of
those doomed to death, Haman sought the acquiescence of the king in his
scheme. And though he refused the bribe, yet he bade Haman do with the
people and their possessions as seemed best to him; giving him his
signet ring, he seems to have divested himself of all care and
responsibility, and Haman having issued the edict and commanded the
couriers to distribute the royal mandate, they both returned to their
pleasures. "The king and his counsellor sat down to drink."

No elaborate essay upon the character of Ahasuerus, no analysis of the
arts of Haman, could so display the indolent, luxurious, self-indulgent,
voluptuous monarch, or so illustrate the secret of the favourite's
power. The companion of his pleasures, he was careful to minister to all
the sensual indulgence that could lead him to forget his duty and the
obligations of right and justice incumbent upon the ruler of a great
people.

Of all the cruel and bloody mandates issued by despotic monarchs, and
designed to answer either the purposes of private malice or unholy
policy, few, if any, have exceeded this which was directed against the
ancient people of Jehovah. The Jews who had returned to their own land
were included in this proscription, for Judea was at this time a
tributary of the Persian empire.

"Then were the king's scribes called, the thirteenth day of the first
month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded,
unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors that were over every
province, and to the rulers of every people of every province, according
to the writing thereof; and to every people after t