Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-01-23

By William George Jordan

ABOUT twenty-five centu By William
IA ries ago, in the old bib ====
1ical days, there lived in
Shushan, in Persia named Haman. He was
self made and very proud of his work, and one
night he invited number of his friends to his house
to hear him talk. He frankly confessed how great
he was; he dilated on the wealth he had accumu
lated he Dragged in twentieth century style about the
clever things his wonderful children did; he boosted
of being solid with the King and of the promotions and
increases of salary awarded him during the last year.
He waxed eloquent over it all. Everything seemed
coming his way and that very day he had received
invitation to little private supper to be given by
Queen Esther to himself and the King:
Hannah distended his chest right valiantly he
said, And tomorrow am l invited unto her also
It was so delightfully."- human, this putting of him
self first, to get under the limeght of his friends
envy though Esther had wanted him only but
said casually Bring your friend the King along,
afterthought. Then Haman, after he had
worked his story up to dramatic climax, put in his
big dash of color the emptiness of all life with the
words
Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as see
Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King gate.
Here the sand in the sugar of his happiness.
This it that put Hannah under the spell of the
one thing lacking.
We All Have Mordecais
WE each have our Mordecai: 1t sits ever at the
w gate of our unsatisfed longing. 1t is the hunger
for Our Mordecai is the possession our heart
that life without it, at times, dull drear,
hopelessly empty. 1t concentrates all desire in a
word. 1t the focus OF every ray OF our deepest
thinking. 1t is the great into which flows every
river rivulet, and nil of restless yearning. In
the garden OF Eden 1T was an apple; with Alexander
it was more worlds to conquer. Between these two,
the seemingly most trivial and the greatest goal OF
ambition, lie all the Mordecas of life.
Our Mordecai may be great JOY ambition
toward which we extend empty beseeching arms, or
some tortur1ng sorrow pain, or memory from which
we long to be delivered. The one thing lacking is
always the next milestone on the road to happiness,
and we think if we could only reach that we should
1,,1v and he aticf1a
1t is ever the human craving for new freedom,
freedom of possession or of dispossession And
when Mordecai enters the city of fulfilled de-
sire, sits down in his place.
Wealth is the Mordecai of countless thousands
In garb of gold he rests at the gate of ambition
We may seek to WOO and win him by years of con-
secrated absorbing service, or to capture him by
sudden bold assault of graft and dishonesty
We may let the thought of his entering our life dull
eyes to the glory of present possessions and
deaden our ears to the finer music of living as we
hear in imagination the unendng clink of the coins
of gold dropping into the Golfers of our 6.esire.
We may pay too 90 big price for the conquest OF
this MOrdecal. We sacrifice friends, honor
love, the JOY of living the higher planes of life
and find finally that this Mordecai possesses u.s. not
we him. We may become his slave instead OF his
master. In the silence of the night, when the soul
has been swept clean for moment by the breath
of some high inspiration: we may realize we nave
Mordecai is not worth while.
We may long for fame We may feel that if our
name on thousands of tongues, like the name of
popular brand of cigars, words quoted with the
sgnet of authority portraits sold in the shops
and our biography in every work successful men,
then the roseate dream of our life would be glo-
rious reality
But when it does it does not long satisfy. 1t
pals; the adulation that once trlckled sweetly
and meltingly in grows insipld; the scent OF
the burning incense STILES us; consplcuousness re-
veas its thorns. There one note missing, and
may not be able to tell what it is; but without
it the music must be angle. We are again under
the spell of the one thing lacking.
Our Mordecai ever keeps from happiness.
Sometimes it is the existence of some one who
blocks the path of progress, one possessing
1nh desire sitting Stn1id1y of