by Mordecai. None but a Jew could have asked, "Who knoweth whether thou
art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" and none but a Jew
could have answered as Esther answered. The question implied a sense of
personal responsibility and of divine guidance far beyond the reach of
Persian or Mede or Greek of that time. It calls up many a quiet hour
when Esther and Mordecai talked together of their strange lot in this
heathen land and wondered if the time would ever come when they could
interpret their trials in terms of national service rather than of
meaningless fate. Imagine the blank and bovine expression that Ahasuerus
or Haman would have turned upon you if you had put such a question to
either of them. But in the case of Esther, Mordecai's appeal unlocked an
unused reservoir of power that has made her one of the world's heroines.
She had her faults, or rather her limitations, but since her time men
have gone to the stake, have built up and torn down principalities and
powers, on the dynamic conviction that they had been sent to the kingdom
"for such a time as this."]



CHAPTER I

THE STORY OF VASHTI


1. Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus, (this is Ahasuerus
which reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, over a hundred and seven
and twenty provinces,)

2. That in those days, when the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his
kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace,