So trifles change the history of the race. In God's economy there are no trifles. The smallest wheel is as important as the largest, for upon it depends the revolution of all. The wakeful worry of the pagan Xerxes in the palace of Shushan is connected by an unbroken chain with the sleepless agony of the Son of God in the garden of Gethsemane. The record of the king's salvation from death by the hand of Mordecai is the precursor, and, in a sense, the cause of the salvation accomplished on Calvary. From the mighty and limitless sweep of the divine providences as they swing from our little earth to the far-off constellations, and fill the universe, working everywhere according to his will and pleasure, we come down to this single point in history, to this episode of a wakeful night in a great man's life, and we can say, Here is the insignificant circumstance and completing link in that great chapter of causation which was to record at last the salvation of the world. Shushan and the whole of Media were once upon a time great and glorious, but all their glory has faded, and they live in memory only as the place where God wrought through the worry of Xerxes the redemption of Israel.

But again we find in this ancient story of an evil plotter's defeat a striking illustration of another method of God's dealings with man. On that fateful night of the king's insomnia the plot was turned against the plotter. Haman hanged on his own gallows is a typical illustration of the workings of the retributive principle which seems to prevail everywhere in God's universe.

This principle is known in the realm of fiction as poetic justice, in the realm of law as lex talionis, in the realm of philosophy as cause and effect; and in the realm of science it is involved in the proposition, "Like begets like." This law of retribution seems to be wrought into our moral nature and into our consciences so that it commands early and universal assent. So far as we can tell, it is God himself

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working in and through every part of his creation. What we call natural and moral laws are simply the methods through which the divine nature expresses itself. He has so made his universe, so vitalized it with his own spirit and will, that evil works out its own penalty, and righteousness its own reward. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Not something else, but that.

The reasonableness of this kind of retribution is everywhere acknowledged. The proverbs of all nations reflect it. "It is a poor rule that does not work both ways." "Ashes always fly back in the face of him who throws them." "He that sows thorns, let him not go barefoot." This principle pervades all literature. Southey's ballad of the "Inchcape Rock" tells how the bell put up by the good abbot to warn ships of their peril was taken down by the sea pirate "Ralph the Rover," who a year thereafter perished upon the same rock "with ship and goods in the righteous judgment of God." Shakespeare tells us in Macbeth of the bloody instructions which "being taught return to plague the offender," and in Hamlet he says "For 'tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard."

Nations which have sinned against other nations have received the boomerang of their evil doings back again into their own vitals. Rome, once the haughty queen of the world, laid the heavy hand of oppression upon her sister nations, and in a few centuries she, herself, was brought under the despotic and blighting power of the Papal hierarchy which has crushed the independence and manhood out of her people as the red wine is crushed from the grape under the merciless screws of the wine-press. Spain, only a few centuries ago, became a party to the most atrocious ecclesiastical and political sins in history. To-day she is reaping the fruits of her oppressive and intolerant spirit in the blight and weakness which have beset her body politic.

Everywhere, among nations and individuals, Haman is hung on his own gallows.

It is interesting to notice, before closing the study of Haman's conspiracy, that prayer and faith had probably much to do in its overthrow. Xerxes, tossing restlessly upon his couch, or pacing, with hot brows, to and fro, over his tesselated floor, is an illustration of the power of prayer. God was tumbling him up and down, as John Bunyan would say. He was bearing heavily upon him with his brooding Spirit, in answer to the importunate prayers of those condemned Jews, who, with Esther and Mordecai, were fasting, and besieging the throne of Him who was greater than Xerxes. All Shushan, all Media, was alive with prayer to the God of Israel. The very air was pregnant with the breath of prayer. Who shall say that it was not transformed into a power which banished the monarch's sleep? As easy would it be for God to do this as to create around the monarch's couch those electrical conditions which are supposed by some to be hostile to slumber. This detection of the small links in the chain, this discovery of the causative effect of trifles, helps us much in our study. of prayer. We can see how easy it is for God to answer prayer in a natural way. He can put us in touch with any part of his universe. He often answers our prayer of faith by putting us into such relations with persons and events that we seem to bring about the desired results ourselves. Mordecai, Esther and the unfortunate Jews fasted, and with great desire prayed for deliverance. In some mysterious way a circuit was established between their hearts and the heart of the only person in the Empire who could grant them deliverance. Xerxes, awake in the night, oppressed with a vague anxiety, and calling for the record, was the answer to their cry. Mordecai was summoned, Esther was granted her request, the messengers were sent out, all in the most natural way, but all because of the faith

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and the importunate desire of the fair Jewess and her people.

Thus it is that prayer, or, what is the same thing, desire, reaching out towards God through faith, secures for us an environment of providences wherein we can move most usefully and happily. It does not make bread fall upon our tables from the skies, but it moves the cloud over some field where our bread is to grow. It does not always bring the specific blessing which we ask, but it brings a better blessing, and puts us in a mood to enjoy it. It does not make Xerxes revoke his decree against Israel, but it compels him to send out messengers who instruct Israel how to resist the decree and escape its consequences. What is done is done, and cannot be undone. God's laws, more inexorable than those of the Medes and Persians, go moving on without let or hindrance. But prayer can anticipate them. It can make the king send out fleet messengers and arm all Israel, so that when the heavy-footed commandment of the king, the decree which cannot be changed, draws near for execution, in the day when the enemies of the Jews hope to have power over them, the Jews gather themselves together to lay hold on such as seek their hurt. and no man can withstand them. "Prayer moves the hand that moves the world."

Charles A. Dickinson.

ESTHER FLEADING FOR HER PEOPLE

ESTHER 8: 3–8, 15-17

"How can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people?"

Your first impulse on reading the entire book of Esther is to exclaim, Is this Saul also among the prophets? It does not seem to breathe the native air of the religious man. It is sadly deficient even in the highest and best morality. The lack does not result merely from the fact that the name of the Deity is not used once in the whole book. Not every book that saith Lord, Lord, enters into the kingdom of that which is profitable for doctrine, for reproof and for instruction in righteousness. But the whole spirit of the book grates upon a Christian consciousness as being narrow, selfish and vindictive. It concedes so much to the hardness of men's hearts that it practically casts in its lot with their moral limitations and moves upon that lower level. It is the one book in the Old Testament that makes no reference to the Holy Land-it does not even set foot upon that soil which, in the production of the choicest moral and religious truth, has proved to be the "good ground." It serves to give striking illustration of the fact that God has worked, not always as he would, but as he could, in view of the deficiences of the human agencies. employed.

When you follow the trail of the whole divine movement for our moral recovery, as portrayed in the Old Testament, you get into some strange places. It took upon itself not the nature of angels but became partaker of our flesh and