nd exertion, had all been
instilled while Esther was in private life, and they bear their fruit on
the throne. Yet there must have been a conflict in the heart of Esther,
before she could adopt the decision which might accelerate the doom of
her people, while, if her appeal failed, her own fate was scaled with
their's.

Surrounded by all the splendour of the court, with all the pleasures
that pomp and power can command, with troops of menials treading marble
halls, with the more genial luxuries of fair flowers and pure fountains
and soft music--Esther felt the insufficiency of all that earth can
yield in the hour of sorrow and trial. We may almost fancy that we see
her, with lofty brow and pale cheek, her dark soft eye fixed in thought,
and the compressed lip telling of the firm resolve. She has decided! She
will venture the loss of royal favour, and life itself, to secure the
safety of her people. "I WILL GO IN TO THE KING, AND IF I PERISH--I
PERISH." Words more simple, yet sublime in their high meaning, have
seldom been recorded. Strong purpose and high resolve call for but few
words.

Yet Esther relied upon a power higher than that of Ahasuerus. She may
have recalled the history of her nation; she may have remembered all the
interpositions of Divine mercy in past extremities; and doubtless she
relied upon those promises for the future which induced in Mordecai a
confident hope of deliverance. She remembered that Jehovah--the God of
Israel--hears the prayers of the humble and the contrite. She appointed
a solemn fast of three days, in which the Jews of Shushan should humble
themselves and remember her before the God of their fathers.

A more eminent instance of simple dependence upon the Divine
interposition, or of entire reliance upon the voice of prayer, has
seldom if ever, occurred. There was no resort to outward ceremonies to
awaken a deeper feeling, or to atone for the want of it by a formal
observance. There was no altar, no sacrifice, no long procession, no
promised offering, no resort to temple or priest, but there was the call
upon God from the depth of the soul--the simple, unfailing trust of the
heart, the personal humiliation, the individual prayer, the united
offerings of supplication and confession from a whole people. There was
the simple faith that relies on the Divine power and pleads the Divine
promises with submission to the Divine will. It was a strange contrast
to the sensual, gross, superstiti