About this time one Aman, an Amalekite of the race of Agag, became advanced in the king's favour above all the other princes, so that all the king's servants, that were at the doors of the palace, bent their knees, and worshipped Aman; for so the king had commanded them: Mardochai alone did not bend his knee, nor worship him. Now when Aman had heard this, and had proved by experience that Mardochai did not bend his knee to him, nor worship him, he was exceedingly angry. And he counted it as nothing to lay his hands upon Mardochai alone; for he had heard that he was of the nation of the Jews, and he chose rather to destroy all the nation of the Jews that were in the kingdom of Assuerus. He accordingly went to the king, and representing to him that there were in his dominions a people that had laws and ceremonies unlike all other people, and that they were noted for being rebellious against kings, he urged that it was expedient for the safety of the king's empire that they should be destroyed. The king hereupon gave him letters to the effect, that on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month the people should everywhere rise up to kill and destroy the Jews, and to make a spoil of their goods. The couriers that were sent out made haste to fulfil the king's commandment. And immediately the edict was hung up in Susa, the king and Aman feasting together, and all the Jews that were in the city weeping. When Mardochai heard of the edict, he rent his garments, and covered himself with sackcloth, strewing ashes on his head, and thus went to sit at the gate of the king's palace. Word was brought to Esther the queen, that Mardochai was sitting in sackcloth at the king's gate. Esther sent to know what was the reason for his sitting thus in sackcloth. Mardochai sent word to her of all that had happened, and gave her messenger a copy of the edict. Esther, on receiving the copy of the edict, understood what was required from her, and sent an answer to Mardochai, that he must know that it would be death for her to go into the inner palace to the king, except the king should hold out the golden sceptre in token of clemency, and that she had not been called to the king for thirty days.' Yet when Mardochai insisted, saying, 'Who knoweth whether thou art not therefore come to the kingdom that thou mightest be ready for such a time as this? Esther sent word to Mardochai to gather all the Jews together to pray for her, and that she would go to the king and expose herself to death and danger. On the third day Esther attired herself, and, trembling as she went, presented herself to the king. The king was pleased, and extended to her the golden sceptre, saying, 'What wilt thou, queen Esther?' Esther asked the king to come with Aman to a banquet which she had prepared. The king graciously assented, and came with Aman to the banquet. Esther, however, would not make her request known, but promised, if the king would come with Aman on the following day, then she would make it known. Aman, overjoyed at this second invitation, went home; but his joy was troubled at seeing Mardochai still refusing so much as to rise from his seat as he passed; his wife, however, comforted him, by advising him to order a gibbet fifty cubits high, and to ask the king the next day that Mardochai might be hanged on it. The same night the king was sleepless, and commanded for his entertainment that the records of the kingdom should be brought. Hearing the portion read in which it was told how Mardochai had discovered the treason of two officers of the palace, the king asked what reward Mardochai had received. His servants answered, 'None.' At this moment Aman came in, and the king said to him, 'What ought to be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour? Aman, thinking this could be none other than himself, said, 'Let him be clothed with the king's apparel, and let the first of the king's princes hold his horse, and go before him through the streets, crying, "Thus shall he be honoured, whom the king delighteth to honour." The king commanded Aman to go and do as he had spoken to Mardochai the Jew. Aman dared not disobey, and when he had done so, he went to his house mourning, and having his head covered. It was time for him now to go to the banquet; at which, when the king was warm with wine, and had inquired of the queen what was her will, she answered, If I QUEEN ESTHER INTERCEDES AND SAVES HER PEOPLE. have found fa- sold for bondmen and bondwomen; the evil might be borne with, and I would have mourned in silence; but now we have an enemy whose cruelty redoundeth upon the king.' And king Assuerus answered and said, 'Who is this, and of what power, that he should do these things? And Esther said, 'It is this Aman that is our adversary and most wicked enemy.' Aman hearing this was forthwith astonished, not being able to bear the countenance of the king and the queen. In vain he fell on his knees before queen Esther. Harbona, one of the officers in waiting, said to the king, 'Behold, the gibbet which he hath prepared for Mardochai, who spoke for the king, stands in Aman's house, fifty cubits high.' The king said, 'Hang him upon it.' So Aman was hanged upon the gibbet which he had prepared for Mardochai. The same day the king raised Mardochai to the rank in his kingdom which had been held by Aman, and letters were sent to revoke the former letters. And when the danger to the Jews was over, Mardochai and Esther wrote letters that the 14th and 15th of the month Adar should be kept with solemn honour for a perpetual remembrance as holy days; for on those days the Lord had turned their sorrow into mirth and joy. Esther the queen is a type of Mary's intercessory power in the court of the King of Heaven, her Divine Son. Esther saved her people by her intercession. 'Who knoweth that thou art not therefore come to the kingdom, that thou mightest be ready for such a time as this?' said Mardochai to Esther. What are not the gifts and graces which Mary can obtain for those on earth who show the same faith in her intercession which Mardochai showed in the intercession of queen Esther in the court of Assuerus? Sixth Subdivision.-The Apostasy from the Law of Moses. § 80. The apostasy of the Jews, from the law of Moses to the customs and literature of the Greeks. The reform of Esdras had been to restore the knowledge of the sacred scriptures to the people; according to the tenor of the Persian decree, 'to appoint judges for them that know the law of God, and to teach freely them that are ignorant.' Esdras, in pursuance of this decree, founded the synagogue worship, as it exists among the Jews to this day. In the synagogue, the law of Moses and the books of the prophets were publicly read and expounded to the people on the Sabbath, and other festivals of the law, by the sagan, or president of the synagogue, and others under him. Schools also were erected for the people by Esdras, and the basis of the instruction given in them was Jewish history, founded on the sacred scriptures. The work of Esdras would seem to have borne great fruit; for during the Persian empire the Temple of Jerusalem was held in high honour even among distant nations, and it often received from them the most magnificent gifts. Alexander the Great, passing by Jerusalem with his army, visited the high-priest, and made rich offerings to the Temple. Learning also from the high-priest, that his victories over the Persians were predicted in their sacred scriptures, he ever afterwards held their Temple in the highest veneration, as a sanctuary of the God of heaven. Alexander died young, and his generals divided his conquered empire into four parts, making themselves into kings of four separate kingdoms, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. Thus the state of Juda, as remodelled by Esdras, came again to be placed between the new Greek kingdom in Egypt and the Syrian Greek kingdom, of which Antioch became the capital city. This brought the Jews in contact with the Greeks, who were noted for immorality and excesses of the most degrading kinds, which by the law of Moses were forbidden under the strongest penalties, as most abominable in the sight of God; but who in other respects were the most refined and intellectual people of the whole world, esteeming every other people as barbarians. From this contact with the known refinement of the Greeks, there grew up amongst the Jews a very bad spirit of contempt for their own Mosaic customs, and especially for the learning and knowledge founded on their own sacred scriptures. There were Jews who began to complain that their ideas were behind those of the rest of the world; that they were become out of date; and that since they had made themselves so unlike all the other nations, nothing but evil had befallen them. The same bad spirit also began to find its way among the priests, insomuch that the writer of the second Book of Maccabees says, 'they were no longer now occupied about the offices of the altar, but, despising the Temple and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the games, and of the exercise of the discus. And setting naught by the honours of their fathers, they esteemed the Grecian glories for the best.' This state of things offered a favourable opportunity to an impious wretch, one Jason, the brother of Onias the lawful high-priest, to intrude himself into the office of the high-priesthood. He went to the reigning Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes, and through the offer of a large sum of money as a bribe, he was sent back to Jerusalem as high-priest, in the place of Onias, having undertaken to bring over his countrymen to the customs and ideas of the Greeks. For this purpose he erected a Gymnasium, or large Government College, in Jerusalem, in which heathen schoolbooks, as selected and approved by the Greek government, were exclusively used, and from which the holy books of Moses and the prophets of Israel were banished. The most frightful immorality was also encouraged among the young Jews, the better to assimilate them to their heathen neighbours, and to bring them up in hatred and contempt of the law of Moses. Such was the apostasy which now threatened the entire ruin of the law of God, promulgated in thunders and earthquakes from the holy mountain of Sinai. But acting wickedly against the law of God, says the sacred historian, doth not pass unpunished. It is worthy of remark, that the policy of taking up education on the part of the Greek government was directly intended as a blow to the religion of Moses. 'King Antiochus,' says the sacred writer, 'wrote to all his kingdom, that all the people should be one, and that every one should leave his own law. And all nations consented, according to the word of king Antiochus. And many of Israel consented to his service, and they sacrificed to idols, and profaned the Sabbath.' Education was thus actually made into a deadly instrument against religion. § 81. The persecution. Mattathias, the father of the Maccabees. Antiochus came to Jerusalem on his return from his campaign in Egypt, and made himself master of it by a sudden attack. He was now determined to root out the law of Moses, and he therefore proceeded to defile the Temple, which he did by placing an image of Jupiter Olympius before the altar, and by offering swine's flesh upon it. He also required all the inhabitants to eat of the sacrifices. Eleazar, one of the chief of the scribes, of an advanced age, set the example of refusing, and was cruelly bastinadoed to death. Seven brethren, with their mother, were now brought before the king, and were required to eat of the swine's flesh. The first who was called upon refused, whereupon the king, being angry, commanded frying-pans and brazen caldrons to be made hot; which forthwith being heated, he commanded to cut out the tongue of him that had spoken first; and the skin of his head being drawn off, to chop off also the extremities of his hands and feet, the rest of his brethren and his mother looking on. And when he was now maimed in all parts, he commanded him, being yet alive, to be brought to the fire, and to be fried in the frying-pan; and while he was suffering therein long torments, the rest, together with the mother, exhorted one another to die manfully. Thus, one after another, perished the mother and her seven sons. As the apostasy began to extend itself from Jerusalem to the other cities and villages where there were synagogues of Jews, Mattathias, a priest, who dwelt in Modin when the officers from king Antiochus came there to compel the people of Modin to offer sacrifices as the Gentiles, rose up, and said with a loud voice, 'Although all nations obey king Antiochus, so as to depart every man from the service of the law of his fathers and consent to the king's commandments, I and my sons and my brethren will obey the law of our fathers. God be merciful unto us. It is not profitable for us to forsake the law and the judgments of God; we will not hearken to the words of king Antiochus, neither will we sacrifice and transgress the commandments of our law to go another way.' Now, as he left off speaking these words, there came a certain Jew in the sight of all to sacrifice to the idols upon the altar in the city of Modin, according to the king's commandment. And Mattathias saw and was grieved, and his reins trembled, and his wrath was kindled according to the judgment of the law, and running upon him, he slew him upon the altar; moreover, the man whom king Antiochus had sent, and who compelled them to sacrifice, he slew at the same time, and pulled down the Greek altar, and showed zeal for the law, as Phineas did by Zamri. The signal of resistance thus given, Mattathias and his sons left all they had in the city and fled to the mountains, where they gathered around them an army of those who, like themselves, would not join in the apostasy. From their fastnesses they made inroads into the cities of Israel, throwing down the Gentile altars, restoring the law, and bringing the vengeance of God upon the apostates. As they were thus engaged, the |