The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1893-02-01

promptly OepOSed, ana ner place nlled
by the most beautiful woman to be
found in the realm.
LET there be fair, young virgins
sought for the king, and let the king
| appoint officers in all the provinces of
his kingdom, that they may gather
together all the fair young virgins
unto Shushan the Palace, to the house
of the women" Es. %, 8.
| This narrative affords vivid Illus
/ tration of the truth that the higher
men are raised in power and wealth,
the lower they often sink in subjec-
ton to their own sensual appetites,
making the qualification of lust a chief
pursuit.
1t shows how much the Gospel of
Christ was needed to give woman her
rightful place in society and to restore
marriage to its original purity.
am sincerely sorry that historical
truth does not allow me to take the
poetic, operate or cantata view of the
character OF Ahasuerus. But truth is
always better than poetic fancies, if
we would learn the real lessons of
history, and we are under special OBJ
legations to follow the exact facts in
dealing with all Bible narratives. We
can only dishonor the Bible by white
washing any of the characters men
toned in it.
| What better evidence than that af-
forded by the conduct of Ahasuerus
could we have of the debasing tend
encies of absolute monarchy and of
monarchies of all kinds such as have
usually existed? We see the debasing
effect both upon the ruler and the
people. Poor human nature is such
that when one individual is placed
above all others, and his or her will
made the source of law, it has just the
effect that it had on Ahasuerus. This
is the man, who, by the unwise exal-
tation in which he had been put above
| god, and when his bridge of boats
across the Hellespont is destroyed by
storm, orders the heads of the en-
| gineers to be cut off, and is SO enraged
| at the rebellious and disrespectful sea
that he commands 300 lashes to be adj
| miristered to it and set of letters
| cast into it.
After the fashion of arbitrary mon
archs, he eXalts vain and worthless
| favorite to high power and freely per-
| mits him, for mere caprice of vanity
to condemn to determination a whole
nation of many thousands of unOffend-
ing people.
He sends out his scouts through his
vast empire of 127 provinces, with
despotic power to gather up the most
beautiful girls of all the nations over
whom he rules, to fill his royal
harem.
How strange it seems that many of
the civilized nations have not yet dis
covered that the very poorest way
possible to establish a government is
to exalt one individual SO high above
others and above the LAW that he or
she is almost inevitably ruined in
character, to proclaim this individual
can do no wrong, and then to make
that spoiled human will the source of
law, authority and honor for the
whole people.
It would seem as though human
ingenuity could hardly have invented
a surer method to degrade, endanger
and enslave the people, and to dis
seminate corrupting influences from
the highest places to the lowest.
The larger the nation, the worse the
system. The engiEeery of government
becomes the facile means of executing
the behests of the most corrupt human
wills.
When one vain man can gather
1900, 900 soldiers and 1900 ships to blot
out the civilization of Greece; when
he can carelessly give to vile favor
lite an irrevocable decree to slaughter
whole nation of his subjects because
one man has not grovelled in the dust
before his insolence; when he can
divorce virtuous queen because she
preserves her self-respecting modesty;
hn ;rIa
from a whole realm to satisfy his
royal lust-such government has be-
come a pestilence and curse worse
than blight or famine, plague or
earthquake. 1t is perverted to the
destruction of the very ends for which
government should exist, the preser-
Walton of the rights, the happiness,
the purity and virtue of the whole
people.
Yet this corruption is the natural,
the inevitable tendency of placing any
one individual above the laws that
should govern all, especially if this
individual is given the added power
which comes from wealth.
just In so far as this superiority to
law has been allowed, it has been the
ruin of sovereigns and of peoples from
the time of the wise solomon of PaleS-
tine to the foolish Isabella IL, of
Spain from the times of the cruel
Henry VIII. to Bloody Mary of Eng
land to the stubborn Charles i. of I'M
happy fate.
God never approved of the system
of kingship; He forbade his people to
have kings, and when they were de-
termined they would have them, like
the slavish heather nations around
them, He told them plainly that they
should suffer oppression under their
hands. That was just what happened
to them during the whole history of
their kings.
But God can make the folly of peo-
Piles and the wrath of kings TO praise
Him. The wicked edict of Ahasuerus
which deposes and divorces the self
respecting Vashti, in Gods providence
brings Esther to the crown, and, by
anticipation, defeats the diabolical
plot of Hannah, even before it is
matured in his mind, or he has ar
rived at full power. 1.-THE Lord reigns
let the earth rejoice.n He overrules
the folly and wickedness of mankind
for the blessing of His people.
Surely the wrath of man shall
praise Thee, the remainder of wrath
shalt Thou restrain" "Thou shalt
break them with rod of iron; Thou
shalt dash them in pieces like pot
ter's ypsspl ~