Queen Esther's Entrance.
By Dr. Guthrie
WITHIN the palace, but without the throne-room of Shushan, Queen Esther stands. They who enter the king's presence unsummoned do it at the peril of their life; and resolved in a good cause to dare the penalty she stands there with her jewled foot upon the grave. A noble spectacle! not so much for unrivaled beauty—still less for the splendor of her apparel, as for the resolution to venture life, and either save her nation or perish in the attempt. In her blooming youth, in the admiration of the court, in the affections of her husband, in her lofty rank, in her queenly honors, she has everything to make life attractive. Hers is a golden cup, and it is foaming of pleasures to the brim. But her mind is made up to die; and so, with a silent prayer and If I perish, I perish, on her lips, she passes in, and now stands mute and pallid, yet calm and resolute, outside the ring of nobles, to hear her doom. Nor has she to endure the agony of a long suspense. Her fate, which seems to tremble in the balance, is soon determined. No sooner does the monarch catch sight of the beautiful woman, and brave and good as beautiful, whom, he had raised from slavery to share his bed and throne, than her apprehensions vanish. The clouds break; and she finds, as we often do with Christ, that her fears have wronged her Lord. Instantly his hand stretches out the golden scepter; the business of the court is stopped; the queen! the queen! divides the crowd of nobles; and up that brilliant line she walks, in majesty and in charms that outvie her gems, to hear the blessed words What wilt thou, Queen Esther? and what is thy request? it shall be given thee even to the half of the kingdom. What wilt thou, Queen Esther? is but an echo of the voice which faith catches from the lips of Jesus; and the whole scene presents but a dim, imperfect image of that which heaven presents when the gate rolls open, and angels and archangels making way for him, a believer enters with his petitions. Was that beautiful woman once a slave? So was he. In her royal marriage was lowliness allied to majesty? So it is in his union, by faith, with Jesus Christ. And as to her royal apparel, the diadem, the cloth of gold bedecked with sparkling gems, in which her maids have attired their mistress, why, in the righteousness that clothes, and the graces of the Spirit that adorn him, the believer wears a robe which wins the admiration, not of men's but angels' eyes, and shines even amid the glories of a city whose gates are made of pearls and whose streets are paved with gold. To the half of his kingdom, the Persian promised whatever his queen might ask: and generous, right royal was his offer; it helps us by its very meanness, as a molehill at the foot of a mountain, as a taper's feeble yellow flame held up against the blazing sun, to form some estimate of the boundless grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Half his kingdom! He offers nothing by halves. His promise is illimitable. All mine is thine. Confining his generosity neither to kingdoms, nor continents, nor worlds, nor heaven itself, he lays the whole universe at a poor sinner's feet. Away, then, with fears and cares! There is nothing we need that we shall not get, nothing we can ask that we shall not receive. It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. Transferring divine wealth, if I may so speak, to our account in the bank of heaven, and giving us an unlimited credit there, Jesus says, All things, whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.—Dr. Guthrie.