e awful catastrophe. With rent garments, and
sackcloth on his head, he travelled the city with a loud and bitter cry,
and his voice rang even over the walls of the palace, in tones that
startled its slumbering inmates.

[Illustration: Humility Exemplified--Giving Alms in Secret.]

It was told Esther, and she ordered garments to be given him, but he
refused to receive them, and sent back a copy of the king's decree,
respecting the massacre of the Jews, and bade her go in and supplicate
him to remit the sentence. She replied that it was certain death to
enter the king's presence unbidden, unless he chose to hold out his
sceptre; and that for a whole month he had not requested to see her. Her
stern cousin, however, unmoved by the danger to herself, and thinking
only of his people, replied haughtily that she might do as she chose; if
she preferred to save herself, delivery would come to the Jews from some
other quarter, but she should die.

From this moment the character of Esther unfolds itself. It was only a
passing weakness that prompted her to put in a word for her own life,
and she at once rose to the dignity of a martyr. The blood of the proud
and heroic Mordecai flowed in her veins, and she said: "Go, tell my
cousin to assemble all the Jews in Shushan, and fast three days and
three nights, neither eating nor drinking; I and my maidens will do the
same, and on the third day I will go before the king, and if I perish, I
perish!" Noble and brave heart! death--a violent death--is terrible; but
thou art equal.

There, in that magnificent apartment, filled with perfume, and where the
softened light, stealing through the gorgeous windows by day, and shed
from golden lamps by night on marble columns and golden-colored
couches, makes a scene of enchantment, behold Esther, with her royal
apparel thrown aside, kneeling on the tesselated floor. There she has
been two days and nights, neither eating nor drinking, while hunger, and
thirst, and mental agony have made fearful inroads on her beauty. Her
cheeks are sunken and haggard--her large and lustrous eyes dim with
weeping, and her lips parched and dry, yet ever moving in inward prayer.
Mental and physical suffering have crushed her young heart within her,
and now the hour of her destiny is approaching. Ah! who can tell the
desperate effort it required to prepare for that terrible interview.
Never before did it become her to look so fascinating as then; and
removing with