The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1905-02-03

morning sermon, in Grace M. e. Church,
the pastor, the Rev Frederick f. Shan
non, had for his theme The Tragedy of a
Queen" The text was from Esther i:ll-l2
Bring Vashti the queen before the king
with the crown royal, to show the people
and the princes her beauty: for she was
fair to look >on. But the Queen Vashti
refused to come at the kings command
ment by his chamberlains." Mr.. Shannon
said:
The Ahasuerus of the hook of Esther is
the Xerxes of profane history. By COM
mon consent of historians he was one OF
the most powerful monarchs that ever
! lived. The pages of Herodotus are filed
with his exploits, and Grote and Rollin,
| also, dwell upon his power and achieve
ments in an interesting manner. But his
tawdry greatness is worth while only as 1T
serves to set forth the heroism Of Nashtl.
| Already the centuries have furnished the
| brillianee Of his court, but not the beauty
Of his queen. Shushan, the palace, exists
only in name. The hundred and fout
score days during which he showed the
riches of his glorious kingdom and the
| honor of his excellent majesty are less
than shadow on the dial. The white,
! green and blue hangings, tied with cords
! of purple and fine linen to silver rings IN
pillars of marble persisted long ago. The
gold and silver beds. which sat upon
pavement of red and blue and white and
| black marble, have had no occupants for
more than 2400 years. The golden vessels,
from which princes quaffed the royal wine,
are all one with the golden sand grains of
| the desert. Time is no respecter OF per-
sons If it buries the common things in
oblivion, that shadow of darkness" it
does not forget to pluck the spangles from
the robes of kings, tossing them into the
night also. But time cannot dull the beau
| ty of a great SOUL Time cannot quench
the flame of white life. Time cannot
| stain the snow of pure heart. And that
! is why Queen Vashti and the tragedy of
her life forever hold our admiration and
our tears.
Perhaps we. shall be more capable OF
measuring the unfortunate queen by glanc-
ing at the monarch she opposed Ahasue-
rus possessed the almost unlimited power
of an Oriental despot. His will was SUI
preme in everything. We find him here
giving a feast to his lords and princes.
! Having conceived the idea of making war
on Greece, this feast to his subjects is
step looking to that end. Whatever he
undertook usually came to pass. He could
| dig canal through the Isthmus of Mount
Athos. He could build a bridge of ships
across the Hellespont. He could scourge
the sea for It's tempestuousness. he could
bedeck the branches of a tree with jewelry
| as a reward for its fruitfulness. He could
raise an army of more than 2,250,000 men.
He could even shed tears when he re-
hected that in less than century not one
of these men would survive. But we have
in our text one thing this monarch could
not do. He could not, compel a helpless
woman to permit him and his drunken
courtiers to make toy of her beauty, He
could not drag a high-souled queen down
from the pedestal of her stainless purity
Consider, in the first place, that the life
story of Vashti recalls the fact that palaces
! have furnished the actors in some OF the
darkest deepest tragedies in history.
When Shakespeare wanted material from
which to create his immortal dramas, with
unerring vision the :ghty master began
to probe the life history of kings and
queens. From their laughter and tears,
from their splendor and shame, from their
rise and fall, he wove literary 4apestry
which is the growing wonder OF mon. In
deed. as we watch Shakespeare move his
royal players over his mental chess-board,
we have to exclaim, with Aeschylus, What
shadow of a shade is human royalty"
Rising in brillance, these royal stars set
in darkness; and, usually, their darkness
is made more terrible by the ominous
Hastings of red lghtnings of remorse.
After a palace and its occupants have
passed under Shakspeare's pen, thisHais
the conclusion of the whole matter:
Thrones are painted bubbles, and kings
and queens are bubble chasers! This is
not saying there are no good kings and
queens, because there are. 1t is, rather,
emphasizing the fact that the happiest
people are those who are fortunate enough
not to have been born under the star of
royalty.
We all know how the historian loves to
dwell upon the character of Cleopatra. Be-
yond question, she was one of the most
captivating women of paganism, Cescend..
ed. from a long line of kings, royal blood
! flowed in her veins, beauty adorned her
person and brilliance sparllled in her
brain. When Nature called for an Egyp-
tian queen, this fascinating Greek princess
was the answer At fourteen she was an
accomplished hngust, a student of history
and a skilled musician. At nineteen she
conquered that Caesar who had conquered
the world. Forty-six years before the
/ Christian era she accompanied him to
Rome, where she lived in pomp and lux
ury until Caesars assassination. when she
returned to Egypt. She met Mark Antony
at twenty eight--"a period Of life accord
! ing to Plutarch, when wonan's beauty is
most splendid and her intellect is in full
| maturity" Antony summoned her to APP
pear before him in Cilicia, charged with
having assisted Cassius before the battle
of Philippi. Upog this imperio3us sum
mons hung the d-stiny of that gifted Ro-
man, and he knew it not. You know
how she answered the summons-not as a
craven culprit, but as the peerless queen
of the south. AS she went up the Cydnus
in her royal barge, the like of which was
never beheld before or since, the scene
enthralled the fancy of both Plutarch and
Shakespeare He who could make words
say what no other man could, had to con-
fess, "For her own person, it beggared all
description" Like a FURNISHED throne,
her barge burned on the water; the poop
was beaten gold; the purple sails were SO
perfumed that the winds were love-sick
with them the silver oars kept stroke to
the tune of flutes; she was couched in a
gold pavilion like Venus. "where we see
the fancy outwork nature;" dimpled boys,
| like smiling Cupids, were standing on
each side tanning her; gentlewomen, like
Mercedes. tended her. When she arrived
| o. 4hn nit,r thn nennle r11shad nnt to sec