heir language, in the
name of King Ahasuerus, was it written, and sealed with the king's ring.
And the letters were sent by posts into the king's provinces, to
destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews--both young and old,
little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of
the twelfth month."

Thus we see all the machinery of this powerful government put in motion
to crush the Jews--a people widely dispersed and weak from their recent
captivity and overthrow. As no crime was specified, so there was no
offer of pardon or exemption on any terms; while to make it more
distinctly understood, the terms which indicated their fate were
singularly multiplied. "To _destroy_, to _kill_, to _cause_ to
_perish_." And while the murder of a nation was thus made a legal
execution, the mode was left to the option of the executioners; and
every torment that malignity could devise might be inflicted, while all
were stimulated by the promise of the plunder of their victims--"and to
take the spoil of them for a prey."

What scenes of horror, of suffering, would have followed the execution
of this barbarous edict! The whole empire had probably been deluged in
blood--for man, like the inferior animals, seems maddened by the taste
of blood--and one cruelty is but the prelude and provocation of another;
and in the time of strife, while all were made executioners of the law,
private malice would confound others with the proscribed, and few could
be safe in the hour of commotion.

When this edict was published, and while Ahasuerus and Haman sat down to
indulge in the pleasures of the table, all the city of Shushan was
perplexed, confounded, and troubled--wondering what motives, what state
policy, what strange conspiracy, had led to this sanguinary enactment
against a people long dwelling among them--a nation who had furnished
counsellors and ministers to their wisest monarchs.

When Mordecai saw what was done, he rent his clothes and put on
sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city and cried
with a loud and bitter cry. He published--he could not conceal--his
grief and terror; and his crafty foe perhaps exulted in his misery. The
long struggle between the Amalekite and the Israelite seemed now to be
concluded. The fall of the Jews seemed to be sealed. All the power of
the Persian empire was arrayed against them. They were prisoners in her
different provinces, appointed to execution! All human p