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and of Susannah and Hadassah, are almost as well known among the wandering children of the deserts of Asia and Africa, (though they are neither able to read nor write,) in their essential points, as they are to our Sunday school classes. From this there are two lessons to be learned: First, That God graciously consulted for the preservation of revealed truth by committing His oracles, in times past, to Orientals, and not to any of us Western peoples, nor to a race resembling us. The language of the Hebrews, its idioms and structure, and their geographical position and national relationships, and peculiar formation of mind, fitted them pre-eminently to receive and preserve for mankind until the fullness of time for their manifestation, the Divine communications, made from the beginning, to patriarchs and prophets for the benefit of the human race. Salvation is of the Jews. They were God's reservoir of saving truth. And the second lesson is, that we owe a great debt of gratitude to God and to our country—to our parents and friends for our privileges, literary and religious. We have the word of God in all its essential purity, both in the original and in translations and versions, so that we may all hear of the wonderful things of God in the tongue with which we were born.

2. We expect to be able to show that true happiness is to be found in putting our trust in Providence. The whole story of Esther "is like a transparency hung before the Pavilion of the Almighty, through which his counsels shine, and his unerring hand is invisible." The whole book illustrates the fact that Providence

has a life plan for every individual, and works out that plan in the use of the ordinary events of life.

We shall find a providence in this history touching the ancient Church of God worthy of special remembrance. It is both natural and strange that any of the Jews should have preferred to remain in exile after the decree of Cyrus permitting them to return to their own land, and to the enjoyment of their own peculiar religious services at Jerusalem. As they built houses and planted vineyards in the land of their captivity, and prayed for the prosperity of their conquerors and masters, it is not strange they should have become attached to their Persian homes; but it is strange that any of those that belonged to Abraham's posterity should have become so indifferent to the great promises that were yet unfulfilled as to seem to abandon them, and give up their distinctiveness as a nation, made peculiar and separated from all other peoples. Such, however, was the fact. While some returned, many were content to remain. Nor are the Jews we find throughout the Persian empire to be supposed as belonging only, if at all, to "Those trackless fugitives, the lost Ten Tribes.” They were also of the house of Judah and Benjamin. But the God of their fathers neither failed to protect those that returned to the Holy Land, nor those that remained behind in Persia. Nor are examples of eminent piety and zeal for their religion wholly wanting. either among those that returned with Nehemiah and Ezra, or among those that remained on the Euphrates.

The two prominent agents raised up at this time for the preservation of the church are Mordecai and Esther,

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by whom God worked out a "glorious deliverance from one of the most mournful, imminent and universal dangers of total destruction that ever had threatened the Jewish church." The providence of God in raising up a Hebrew maid to be the Queen of Persia, and in overthrowing Haman for his iniquity, and in rewarding Mordecai for his piety and integrity, is wonderful. The piety and wisdom of Esther and Mordecai are not, however, so super-eminent as to obscure the dealings of a most gracious sovereignty. The virtues of the instruments do not render any the less conspicuous the mercy and power of God toward his ancient people in their captivity and voluntary exile. The sovereign goodness of God toward his church is seen sometimes in using the heathen to afflict it, and then in overturning them and in making their perdition subservient to the advancement of his truth. Jehovah is King in all the earth. He maketh the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of wrath he restraineth. A poet has well said, in teaching us to recognize God's providence, that

"If pestilence stalk through the land, ye say, This is God's doing;

Is it not also His doing, when an aphis creepeth on a rose-bud? If an avalanche roll from its Alp, ye tremble at the will of

Providence:

Is not that will concerned when the sear leaves fall from the poplar?"

"Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified. But I am poor and needy;

yet the LORD thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God." Prov. xl. 16, 17. "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore; for ye are of more value than many sparrows." Luke xi. 6, 7.

3. We expect to be able to show from the testimony in this case that it is not only God's plan to work by means, but often to surprise his people by unexpected deliverances, and by bringing great results out of small beginnings. The greatest events in human history have been generally produced by apparently insignificant causes, and because of their quiet might, they have awakened at first but little interest. The greatest powers of nature are silent and invisible. The power of gravitation, what is it? Who hath seen it? The lightning and the dew how powerful, and yet how impalpable! The ruins of a city, are they not the fruits of a spark? And if a noble mind is wrecked, is it not the result of a wrong impression recieved in the nursery, or of some insidious falsehood imperceptibly imbibed and left to take root and grow strong and work out the ruin, before its poison was detected? The turning point of Washington's life-the decision that made him the Father of his country, was it not his regard for his mother? Joseph and Moses, Daniel and Mordecai, illustrate the value of right principles implanted in the youthful mind by parental affection and piety. One could not yield to the most seductive temptation, because to do so would be a sin against God; another refused the

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honors of an empire, then the greatest on earth, and chose to suffer poverty and persecution with God's people, because of the faith in which he had been brought up. And Mordecai and Daniel, captives in the most. licentious and luxurious heathen cities on the globefar from home and from all parental oversight-and great favorites with the Courts of Babylon and Persia, never forgot their education, nor brought reproach upon. their mothers' catechism or their fathers' faith. The impressions made on their young hearts by their Hebrew parents were indelible. The beauty, power and fascination of the most splendid heathen courts could not efface them. The fiery prophet Elijah is another illustration of the effectiveness of silent influences. The solemn thunder came rattling from the desert clouds, the hurricane came sweeping over the rocks and riven mountains of granite and porphyry, filling the air with clouds of sand-the rocking and crashing march of the earthquake, and the blinding flame of the lightning—all failed to reach his heart. God was not in the wind, nor in the fire, nor in the earthquake. It was when the Lord spake to the prophet "in the still small voice," that his heart was opened and his stubborn soul was conquered. Mother, sow the seed. Father, instill the principle. And ery to God, mightily both of you, and far away, and many days hence, the seed will grow, the principle will live, and your God will be the God and everlasting portion of your children. The waving harvest is all from seed cast into the ground with mingled hopes and fears. The rolling river springs from brooks among the hills, whose tiny fountains an infant's hand could turn aside.