replete, too, with instruction, in displaying the absorbing power of the
selfish and malignant passions, and their fatal influence upon character
and happiness.

One unsatisfied desire will embitter all the most coveted possessions.
There will ever be something to be achieved--some enemy to humble, some
higher elevation to attain, some Mordecai in the gate, whose reverence
withheld is more desirable than all the homage of the multitude
bestowed.

He who cherishes in his heart a hatred of a class or an individual, is
nursing a scorpion which will poison every kind feeling. We must love,
not only to make others happy, but that we may be happy ourselves. We
may withhold all marks of approbation from the unworthy, and still
regard them with the benevolence required by the law of love.

Thus while Mordecai saw in Haman the same persecuting spirit that had
marked all his race; while he saw him, unholy, unprincipled, securing by
his acts an influence over his master, which he abused; prostituting the
royal authority to the ruin of the kingdom, making it subserve the
purpose of his own unhallowed ambition; alienating the monarch from the
queen, and inducing the disregard of the duties of private life as of
sovereign power--Mordecai, as an upright, honourable, high-minded man,
refused to render one, whose course he deprecated, whose character he
abhorred, the honour accorded even by royal favour. He neither bowed nor
did him reverence. But he did not assail him. He did not form any dark
and treacherous plots against him. He did not revile him. All that he
sought was to lead the blinded monarch to a calm investigation into the
proceedings of his treacherous counsellor. And Haman had every
opportunity of repelling accusation and justifying himself, as he was