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ESTHER ;

THE HEBREW-PERSIAN QUEEN.

BY REV. W. A. SCOTT, D. D.

OF SAN

FRANCISCO.

"THE HISTORICAL matters of Scripture constitute as it were the bones of its system;
and its spiritual matters are its muscles, blood vessels and nerves. As the BONES are
necessary to the human system, so Scripture must have its historical matters. Those
expositions are the safest which keep closest to the text."-Bengel.

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Entered according to Act of Congress in the year of our Lord, 1859,

By W. A. SCOTT,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the Northern District of California.

69255

O'MEARA & PAINTER, PRINTERS.

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To you I beg leave respectfully to dedicate this humble attempt to explain and illustrate the wonderful history of the orphan Hebrew maid of Shushan, who became Queen of Persia. And I do so because I firmly believe the mightiest human power on earth, for good and for evil, is lodged in woman's hand:

"They who rock the cradle, rule the world."

And I also believe that the SACRED SCRIPTURES alone, of all writings ancient or modern, have fully comprehended and rightly understood woman's mission, and truthfully and properly represented her in her true place. As it was by a woman our race fell, so it is by woman mankind are to be elevated and saved. The great Saviour of the world was born of a woman, and one of the most lovely and hopeful sights on earth is a woman beneath the cross with the Word of God in her hand, learning her duty and acquiring the graces which fit her for her high mission in the world.

Woman's calling and rights are much talked of in our day, but I am fully persuaded that it is from the Bible, and not from new platforms, that we are to learn what they really are; and that not so much from precepts, as from examples. The Bible does not explain whether woman is equal or superior to man-does not dogmatize on her social or domestic condition, but straightway tells us how she was created, and for what purpose, and then illustrates her mission by giving brief notices of how a few remarkable mothers and wives fulfilled their vocation, from the days of the patriarchs to the apostles. This is true "philosophy teaching by example."

To you, therefore, to whom Providence has chiefly committed the great moral power of moulding into shape the minds and manners, and consequently the eternal destinies of the millions that are soon to have their home on this coast, is this volume most respectfully dedicated.

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