ix, verses 20-32) and to promote national solidarity. It may be compared
to "A Christmas Carol," which was written to restore the waning
celebration of Christmas, and to our Declaration of Independence, which
is re-read on every Fourth of July to quicken our sense of national
fellowship. But "Esther" is more than an institution. It is the old
story of two conflicting civilizations, one representing bigness, the
other greatness; one standing for materialism, the other for idealism;
one enthroning the body, the other the spirit.

_Characters_. These are finely individualized, though each seems to me a
type. Ahasuerus is a tank that runs blood or wine according to the hand
that turns the spigot. He was used for good but deserves and receives no
credit for it. No man ever missed a greater opportunity. He was brought
face to face with the two greatest world-civilizations of history; but,
understanding neither, he remains only a muddy place in the road along
which Greek and Hebrew passed to world-conquest. Haman, a blend of
vanity and cruelty and cowardice but not without some power of
initiative, was a fit minister for his king. He lives in history as one
who, better than in Hamlet's illustration, was "hoist with his own
petard," the petard in his case being a gallows. He typifies also the
just fate of the man who, spurred by the hate of one, includes in his
scheme of extermination a whole people. Collective vengeance never
received a better illustration nor a more exemplary punishment. Mordecai
is altogether admirable in refusing to kowtow to Haman and in his
unselfish devotion to his fair cousin, Esther. The noblest sentiment in
the book--"Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a
time as this?"--comes from Mordecai.

But the leading character is Esther, not because she was "fair and
beautiful" but because she was hospitable to the great thought suggested