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hang this very Mordecai upon a gallows fifty cubits high, which he had caused already to be set up, in the assured conviction that the king would not refuse him so trifling a request, and little thinking that he himself was destined to swing high in air upon it? Lastly, Who ordered it so, that, coming with this errand, in his wrath, he was only stopped from uttering it by an order to hasten to confer upon this Mordecai, with his own hands, the highest distinctions the king could bestow upon the man he delighteth to honor. God not in the book of Esther! If not there, where is He? To our view, His glory-the glory of His goodness in caring for, and shielding from harm, His afflicted church, shines through every page.”— Kitto.

In the feast of Purim, which occurs, I believe, in February, we have a commemoration of the Providential deliverance of the Jews in Persia, more than two thousand years ago. During this festival business is carried on, and work done, as on other days. It is not, therefore, a Jewish Sabbath. And it is also, perhaps, true that there are differences, or varieties, in some of the minor usages, or customs, found connected with the observance of this festival. It were not strange if the manner of keeping it should differ, in a few nonessentials, in Europe from that observed in America. The Lord's supper is observed, by some Christians, literally in the evening, and by others, at noon. Some receive the elements as they sit in their pews; others sit around a table, as nearly as possible, in the way the disciples sat around our Lord; while others kneel around the pulpit, or what they call an altar. But such differences in the manner of keeping this sacrament do

not, in any wise, take from its importance, nor lessen the historic evidence in its favor.

At the festival of Purim, the book of Esther-Megillah, as the Israelites call it, is read. The copy used is written on vellum, in the form of a roll; and it used to be so written, and is perhaps so still, that the names of Haman's ten sons could be pronounced in a single breath-written in order, one after another, after the manner in which their bodies were hung on the gallows.†

It was a good day, and a day for the sending of portions one to another. This custom of sending portions is common in the East, and especially in India, where many Bible customs have been retained with but little change. The Hindoos on the first of every month often send cakes, oil, clothes, spices and fruits, as presents to one another. And if a Prince invites to a feast those who cannot come, he sends them a portion of his banquet to be eaten at their own home in remembrance of his bounty.* It was a day of feasting and gladness, as well as of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor. Almsgiving is always a becoming method of expressing our gratitude for the divine favor. A Hebrew proverb says: Alms are the salt that season and preserve our goods; and as Esther was an orphan, it is peculiarly fit that a feast at which she is the Heroine should show special munificence toward the fatherless. Our Hebrew brethren are justly celebrated for their protection of their own poor, and for the education of their own children. Usually in the observance of this feast, much attention is given in supplying the poor,

† See Horne's Intro., iii vol., chap. iv.

*See Harmer's Obs. chapter iv.

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and in showing delicate kindness to their religious teachers, and to make every one comfortable and happy. Nor should it be thought a strange thing that some abuses should have sometimes been observed in this festival. Purim seems to be very much like some of the festivals of the Pagans, or to resemble our Fourth-ofJuly, when men, women and children, indulge in diversions and in the foaming bowl more freely than at any other time. I have heard it said that it was a part of the duty of "a free born American citizen to imbibe freely of old Bourbon on the Fourth-of-July, though he were a son of temperance all the other days of the year." It were not unnatural, then, if the Israelites did excuse the free use of wine at the feast of Purim, saying, that all men, women and children, must drink of the "crowned goblet foaming with floods of wine," for all men and women and children were exposed to danger. But if it ever was true, as our gifted countryman makes Rabbi Ben Israel say, in the lines at the head of this chapter, that it was the duty or the custom of those who kept the feast of Purim, to indulge in wine so freely, as not to be able to know the difference between "cursed be Haman! and blessed be Mordecai," it is not so now. Israelites, I think, have always used wine as a good gift of the Almighty; but as far as my observation and historical researches go, and I have seen them in large numbers in all the four quarters of the globe, and I must say, and I am happy to say it, I regard them as the most temperate people I have ever known. I can say of them, what I cannot say of any other race or religion; I have never seen an Israelite drunken. It is well known that in the East at the present day, drunken

dogs, are among the epithets bestowed on Franks and Christians, and with more truthfulness than it is pleasant to confess.

The feast of Purim then, is an annual commemoration of the deliverance of the Jews in Persia, Esther being the Queen, and Mordecai Grand Vizier. It was instituted at the time in the most solemn manner, and the Jews took it upon themselves, and ordained, with all the authority of the king and queen, that they and their seed after them, and all who should ever join themselves to them forever, should observe as a day of feasting and gladness, and of giving portions one to another, and gifts to orphans. "The truth of this whole history," says Dr. Lee, "is demonstrated by the feast of Purim, kept up from that time to this very day. And this surprising providential revolution in favor of a captive people, thereby constantly commemorated, standeth even upon a firmer basis, than that there ever was such a man as king Alexander the Great in the world, of whose reign there is no such abiding monument at this day to be found anywhere. Nor will they, I dare say, who quarrel at this, or any other of the sacred histories, find it a very easy matter to reconcile the different accounts which were given by historians of the affairs of this king, or to conform any one fact of his, whatever, with the same evidence which is here given for the principal fact in the sacred book, or even so much as to prove the existence of such a person, of whom so many great things are related, but upon granting this book of Esther, or sixth of Esdras, as it is placed in some of the most ancient copies of the Vulgate, to be a correct, most true and certain history."—Dr. Lee's Dissentations on Esdras.

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It is according to the instincts of the human heart as well as according to the laws of the human mind, that some monument or memorial of past events that have been of great interest to us, or our race should stand out as their concrete history. This is the meaning of the columns, arches and pillars that have been erected, of some kind or other, in all ages and countries. The lion crowned mound of Waterloo, the monument of Bunker Hill, the plain of Marathon, and the mountains looking on it, are not more truly monuments of past realities, than is the feast of Purim. Nor is there any monument, unless it be the Church of God itself, that is so truly a living proof and demonstration of the truth of our Holy Scriptures as the Israelitish race. Every Hebrew face on earth is an epistle from the Almighty, proving the truth of Divine Revelation. Their writings are admitted to be ancient, and that they have been preserved with singular care and fidelity; and their personal, tribal and national histories, (and yet they are not a nation,) are according to their own writings; that is, a fulfillment of the threatenings and promises of JEHOVAH, made to them and concerning them. Their feast of Purim and their day of Atonement, are proofs of the reality of great past historic events, just as our Fourth-of-July is a proof of the truth of our Declaration of Independence. And as Americans are wont to have a feast and read the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth-of-July, so are the Israelites wont to have a feast and a good day, and read the Megilloth Esther on the thirteenth and fourteenth of the month Adar. And the length of time, the number of generations that have kept the Purim feast, only