ESTHER was a very beautiful girl, and Ahasuerus the great King of the
Medes and Persians chose her to be his Queen, and he loved her very
much.
Esther was not only beautiful in face, but she had a very beautiful
character.
She belonged to the people of God, called the Jews, who had been
carried away captives from Palestine, and were now living in Persia.
Among these Jews was a man called Mordecai, who was much respected for
his goodness, and he sat in the King's Gate.
When Esther's father and mother died, Mordecai took the little girl and
brought her up as his own daughter. He taught her about God, and Esther
was very obedient, and loved Mordecai very dearly.
[Illustration: Mordecai took the little girl and brought her up.]
Then Esther was made Queen, and things went on peacefully; until
one day Mordecai heard that there was a plot forming to kill King
Ahasuerus. He at once secretly told Esther, and she told the King; and
the two conspirators were both hanged. But the King forgot to thank
Mordecai, though it was written down in the Chronicles of the Kingdom.
About that time the King took a great fancy to a man called Haman, who
hated the Jews, and especially Mordecai, because he did not bow down to
him when he passed.
So Haman obtained leave from the King to fix a day when all the Jews
should be killed in the whole Kingdom.
But the City Shushan was much perplexed; for they knew, though the King
did not, that his beloved Queen was a Jewess!
When Mordecai found out all that was happening, he was bitterly
grieved, and sent an urgent message to Esther, and implored her to go
in and tell the King, and beg him to spare her people.
But Queen Esther sent back a message to Mordecai, to remind him that if
anyone ventured to go in to the King's inner Court, that person would
certainly be put to death unless the King should hold out his Golden
Sceptre.
So Mordecai sent another urgent message to tell Esther that perhaps she
had come to be Queen, to do this very thing. But if she did nothing,
then she and all the Jews would perish!
Then Queen Esther begged Mordecai to gather all the Jews together who
were in Shushan, and to bid them fast and pray for three days; and she
and her maidens would fast too; and at the end of that time, she said,
"I will go in to the King, which is not according to the law, and if I
perish, I perish."
Esther was brave because she knew that she had God on her side; and she
believed that He would answer the prayers they were all offering up.
[Illustration: QUEEN ESTHER BEFORE AHASUERUS.]
So on the third day Queen Esther put on her Royal robes, and went into
the Inner Court and stood before the King.
When King Ahasuerus saw his beautiful young Queen standing there so
meekly, he held out the Golden Sceptre which was in his hand. And she
drew near and touched the top of the sceptre.
And when he asked her what request she had to make, the King must
have been astonished at her reply, for she only asked that the King
and Haman should come to a banquet which she had prepared for them.
So when they came to the Banquet, the King asked the Queen again what
her petition was? And she said if the King and Haman would come to a
Banquet with her, again to-morrow, she would then tell the King what
her request was.
So Haman went out from Queen Esther's Banquet very proud; and he told
his wife and his friends of his second invitation, but he said that
nothing was any pleasure to him, so long as Mordecai, the Jew, sat in
the King's Gate.
Then his wife and his friends advised him to make a gallows fifty feet
high, and to get the King to let him hang Mordecai on it.
But that night the King could not sleep, and one of his servants
fetched a roll of the Chronicles of the Kingdom, and he read to him how
Mordecai had once saved the King's life.
And in the morning the King asked Haman what would be suitable to do to
"the man that the King delighted to honour?"
But Haman little thought that when he proposed to set the man on the
King's own horse, dressed in the King's Royal clothes, that it would be
Mordecai who was to be honoured, and not himself!
But the King told Haman to lead Mordecai round the town, and to
proclaim: "Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delighteth to
honour."
After this Haman went to the Banquet that Esther had prepared. He
little knew what the Queen's request was going to be! For Esther told
the King that a great plot had been made to destroy her and all her
people, and that this wicked Haman was the one who had planned it all!
Then Haman was afraid before the King and Queen.
You can picture the anger of the King, and when he was told of the
gallows which Haman had prepared for Mordecai, he ordered that Haman
should be hanged there at once.
Then the Queen begged that letters might be sent to stop all the Jews
being killed, and Ahasuerus sent urgent posts on mules and horses and
swift dromedaries to tell the Jews that they might stand up for their
lives, and destroy any enemies who rose up against them.
Thus God answered the prayers of that young Queen and her maidens, and
of the Jews who joined with her in fasting and praying, and sent them a
great deliverance, the remembrance of which has been handed down from
generation to generation ever since.
[Illustration]