The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1893-02-01
EVILS OF MONARCHY.
Powerful Sermon Delivered by
i, Rev. Il. L. Gu1ick.
published by request

published by request.)
A part of the sermon preached by
Thos. l.. Gulick in Central Union
Church, Honolulu, H. T., Sunday
evening, January %, 1898, the first
Sunday after the fall of the Queen
and the establishment of the Provis-
ional Government under the Presi-
dency of s. b. Dole.
SUBJECT: ESTHER AND AHAsUE-
RUS" by Rev. Thos. L. Gulick.
Esther 2:15. "And Esther obtained
favor in the sight of all them that
looked upon her"
Esther Ala. eff thou altogether
holdest thy peace at this time, then
shall there enlargement and deliver
ance arise to the Jews from another
place; but thou and thy fathers
house shall be destroyed; and who
knoweth whether thou art come to
the kingdom for such time as this?"
A beautiful woman raised out of OBJ
security and suddenly made the queen
of mighty realm is very liable to
become proud and tyrannical; but
such was not the case with Esther
Out WAS HUI Vi tll0 vi
who, when they have attained to high
tors, and think themselves too wise
or too great to receive counsel from
the humble. Esther, the Queen,
shows as much Difference to Mordecai,
the humble and pious Jew, as when
she was his dependent ward. Esther
was the Persian name of a Jewish
maiden who was one of the captiveS
in Babylon. The name means star.
Her Jewish name was Hadassah,
which means the myrtle. Both names
were beautiful and significant of what
she was. This sweet myrtle" will
ever be kept green in the memory of
the Jews and of Gods people while
history lasts. For her heroism and
devotion this "star'i of beauty still
continues to shine with steady light.
While her remarkable physical beauty
has ages ago crumbled into dust, her
moral beauty shines with undimin-
ished splendor, and is perpetual
witness that it is deeds of loving self
sacrifice which will preserve the
memory of the righteous and make
their names dear to their fellow men,
rather than any endowments which
they may have received, or honOrs to
which they may have been exalted.
Esther appears to have lived about
thirty years after the time of Daniel,
and at the beginning of the times of
Ezra and Nehemiah.
Daniel closed his career under the
reign of Darius, and historians are
now agreed that Esther was the queen
of XerXes l., called Ahasuerus in the
book of Esther) who was the son of
Darius and his immediate successor.
The incidents recorded in the cook of
Esther are thoroughly in keeping
with the known character of Xerxes
and the events of his reign as recorded
in profane history.
The principal dates concur with re-
markable periods in the life of Xerxes.
The feast in the first chapter cores
ponds in point of time with the great
council which he convened to decide
upon the invasion of Greece, which
the book of Esther tells us lasted
hundred and eighty days, that is, six
months.
Other ancient writings tell us of
equally ptotracted feasts; similar
customs still prevail in Persia. The
events in the second chapter coincide
with the period of his return from
Greece, when he is said by HerodOtus
to have given himself up to unbound
ed personal indulgence, of which we
have appalling evidence in the sec.
ond chapter. In the meantime he
had made his famous expedition
against Greece, in which he gathered
up host of from four to five million
men, host made up of nany differ
ent nations.
According to Herodotus there were
six millions, that is, more than the
entire population of Ireland, sixty
times the population of these Islands.
Grote, who discredits the immense
numbers given by Herodotus says,
nevertheless" may well believe that
the number of Xerxes were greater
than were ever assembled in ancient
times, or, perhaps, at any known
epoch of history"
A bridge consisting of double line
of boats was built across the Helle-
spont upon which the myriad host
crossed from Asia into Europe. Her
odOtus says it took them seven days
and seven nights to cross. The
Ph9necians and other maritime ma
tions furnished an enormous fleet of
1900 ships of war. The brave Greeks
resisted the swarming host at Their
mopylae, at Salamis, at Plataea and
at Mycale; and though Athens was
burnt, they finally drove the Persian
host out of Europe.
1t is this luxurious king of eastern
nations of whom we read in the Book
of Esther.
At the great council which was to
take action upon the invasion of
Greece, the mobiles and princes over
one hundred and twenty-seven prov
inces of the Mede-Persian empire, eX-
tending from India to Ethiopia, were
gathered together at the Sl,ushan
palace for one hundred and eighty
days, winding up with an enormous
feast. CThe gorgeous splendor of this
great festival is quite in harmony
with historical accounts of Persian
luxury and magnificence.)
When the king and his lords be-
came merry and rude with wine, he
gave orders to bring Vashti, the
queen, before him to "show the
princes and the people her beauty for
she was fair to look upon." Such an
appearance as the king required
would be, not only according to ORR
entail custom, but according to true
womanly modesty in all ages, de-
graduation to which a woman Of good
character would not tamely submit.
We think all the better of Queen
Vashti that she dared to resist the
commands of an absolute and brutal
>. king in his cups: that she had so
ouch sense of womaniy dignity and
,desty as to refuse to make herself