"Their rural work was among Sweet dews and flowers, and where any row Of fruit trees, over woody, reached too far To wed the Elm; where spoused about him She might twine her marriageable arms and with her It is easy to discern the natural causes of this dif- | is rugged-handed labor that binds men into comference, but the inquiring mind unwilling to stop munities for mutual good and urges them to confihere, seeks the reasons why God has made this dence in each other. It is labor that has never difference so uniform, why He permits discoveries ceased to knock at the door of man's heart, and in Science to keep step only with a rightly devel- call out his social affections by showing the depenoping moral nature. Let us see. While Adam dance of others upon himself. It is labor that in and Eve lived sinless in the garden, the unploughed darkest times has kept sympathy and love from earth fed them. All their toil was, "To dress that dying out of the Heart and has reminded men of a garden :"truth, they had otherwise forgotten, that God made them a brotherhood. Yes! labor is the conservative power over wicked and unenlightened men! 'Twere unwise to trust them with leisure-It would be their extermination. But a new day has dawned upon the Apostate World-" God is in Christ, reconciling the World into Himself," and man is returning to his allegiance. Moral nature is again tending to right and sanctified development, and every step it takes in its progress, less labor is necessary for the faithful cultivation of the much Their Labor was like the play of children in the impaired moral nature-for it is a hard and long summer woods. It took from leisure all its satiety neglected soil that is to be tilled. But how is man and added new joys, and they were happy in com- to gain this leisure? Will the accursed Earth give munion with God and with one another, and in cul-bread again spontaneously? Will the ground gather tivating the daily growth of their intellectual and the soil of Eden again upon its blasted surface? moral natures. But they sinned, and a sinful Pos-No! Then is there no compensative force? Yes terity swarmed upon an accursed earth, and by the there is, and it is scientific discovery. As Relisweat of their brow watered its sterility into a gion advances, Science follows in her footsteps; meagre productiveness. The moral nature which and as man's moral nature unfolds rightly under in their sinless progenitors opened daily in new the preaching of the Gospel, the discoveries of beauty and strength, now steadily developing in science better his physical condition, relieving him new shapes of hideous deformity, swept on with from much labor, by putting into his hands powers destructive vigor in its ravaging progress. If God and efficiencies he knew not of before. All labor had given them the leisure and ease of Eden and is founded on Ignorance and Ignorance on Sin. the Earth had brought forth as with primeval fer-Agents of tremendous power sleep around us in tility, they would soon have hurried over each air, earth and in the rolling sea. Many we cannot other into destruction. But God had seen that a perceive and many we dare not arouse, for we fear mighty barrier was necessary to shut them back ruin from their undirected energies. We know from ruin, so he cursed the Earth, and Toil and not how to find nor wield the weapons stacked up Weariness and unappeased Hunger and Thirst in the great storehouse of outside nature; and why curbed in the Apostate race with a thousand reins. do we not know? because Vice and Ignorance have Behold! what a conservative power is labor! always been boon companions on the Earth. But what a wise arrangement that men here must work! Labor and Ignorance also always go together. So If no necessity forced them on to toil for their that if we can rid ourselves of Sin we rid ourdaily bread, the Earth would be a scene of plot selves of Ignorance, and Ignorance is only exand counter-plot. Men would combine with the pelled by accessions of Knowledge, and as KnowDevils to set pit-falls and cunning snares for each ledge increases, Power increases and personal other. Strengthening Passion would have its free labor decreases. So as men become better, they course, and man's soul would soon lose the last become wiser, and search out new inventions to trace of its heavenly inscription and grow to the ameliorate their condition and gain leisure to cultifull stature of perfect demonhood. But see what vate the spiritual and intellectual more than the hard labor does for man! It draws him back into physical. Thus in this natural way and for these a circumscribed sphere and building a hedge about reasons God permits discoveries in science, just in him, bids him act himself out there within its limits. proportion to the right progress of moral nature. It stifles the fire of Passion or chastens its heav- And who knows but as moral nature becomes recing flame. It wears away his pride by continual at-tified under the teaching of the Gospel, when no trition and soothes him into subjection. Hard labor discord shall be heard in the unbroken Song of Retires a vast deal of Vice out of the Universe. And demption, going up from the circle of the Earth— not only does it repress-it does more--it excites. when the Church of Christ shall truly be a "TemIts necessities force an opening out of which the ple not made with hands," whose floor shall be the better feelings of human nature may struggle. It' green Earth and whose dome the outspread Heav Afton, Culpeper county, Va. TO J. E. B. Oh! it en, whose aisles shall be the broad valley of the | sures reward the Student of Providence. Mississippi and the sunny plains of Hindostan-- is a good thing to make Providence our Study! who knows but God will then give to ransomed The world is then our school-house, Nature and man the keys to the chambers of Nature, where man our text-books and the Bible our Teacher. he may find, long shut ont from his sun-blended And when death shall open to us our new and maeyesight, Powers and Agencies which shall labor turer Existence, these bright and passing days, for him as servants. Such things may be. The which we call Life, shall seem to us as the days love that chained our rebel race to the Iron Pillar of an Early Childhood when we learned to spell of Labor, may in due time unbind the subdued and stammer out a few glorious Truths. Penitent, wipe the tears from his eyes and the sweat from his brow. The Earth, though it may never wear again the spotless garment of Eden, may be turned into a vast Laboratory, wherein men shall be Alchymists and shall guide the Elements to their work, combining and directing their mightiest energies-Man may regain his forfeited title of the "Lord of Creation." Weariness may be known no more; and Labor, as in Eden, may only be as a relief to the tedium of perpetual leisure. Now the body must toil to sustain life and keep the soul Years, weary years have past since last we parted, within the tent door, but then the obedient Ele- Dream of my youth! my first love and my last! ments may be made to minister to the spirit even Yet still thy sweet face haunts me with its beauty, as the body now does. We may make the Storm-Filling my heart with memories of the past. Thou hast been with me through those years of sorrow, winds plough our spring fields and we may catch A blessed comforter, an angel-guide, the summer rain to drive the steam scythe through And still, though more than distance now doth part us, the summer grass. We may cause the bare rock I feel that thou art ever by my side. to wave with the yellow harvest and we may make the Land-Breeze that fostered its life, gather it into our barns. By our power the Mango and the Orange may shed their leaves with the other trees of our Forests, and the Banian may build its green palace on all our Hilltops. The fiery energy of the volcano may be chastened into usefulness, and the Lava that scorched up pasture ground and smiling hamlet, may be made to run as a messenger of life. The blast of Winter may be made to warm fruit tree and tender herb, and the fierce lightning may be soothed to most efficient agency. WHO KNOWS? Some may smile. I would ask them have not discoveries as wonderful marked the last thirty years that have just gone? Would you not have laughed outright ten years ago, had some one whispered you that you should make the skipping sunbeam grave your face most truthfully in silver with its unseen chisel? May not experience bid you It thou wert happy in thy distant home, open your ears to the voice of the Past, which de- Happy as thou art lovely, good and pure, clare, that scientific discoveries shall keep pace Then could I better bear my weight of sorrow, with the right development of moral nature. Then could my strength unto the end endure. But there are those who tell me thou art altered, see then that Labor is one of the great conserva- That sadness dwells upon thy fading brow; tive forces that has held the Apostate back from While in the eyes once bright with hope and gladness, utter ruin; and we also see that progressive Dis-Lieth a shadow deep and mournful now. We covery in Science and the Arts is the compensa I If there be aught of high and holy feeling I owe it to no influence but thine! Thou art another's now, and thy sweet voice- tive power bestowed upon the returning rebel. Oh! God, to know that thy young heart is breaking, This is an arrangement in the constitution of things Thy buoyant spirit bowing 'neath its woe; which speaks many lessons to the considerate mind. While I may breathe no word of love or comfort To cheer thee on thy dreary path below:Here I have held up to your view only one thread 'Tis vain to murmur, worse than vain to hopein the seamless garment of Providence. There And yet one precious hope indeed is givenare many others-some are full and distinct and That thou, so wildly, passionately loved many are small and curiously interlaced in the While lingering here, inay be mine own in Heaven! woven texture. You may therefore see what plea THE FORTUNES OF ESTHER, THE JEWESS. CHAPTER IX. daily viewing the throngs of beautiful females that passed him, as he sat in the king's gate, suddenly conceived the idea of presenting Esther among the congregated beauties. it confirmed his wavering mind as to the justice of Vashti's banishment, and promised great happiness in the selection of a new queen. The decree was therefore made without delay and as readily obeyed. The beauty of the empire was already pouring into the city from the adjacent provinces, surThe king's great feast was over, and the gloom rounded with a splendor and treated with a distincof jaded spirits weighed down by excess, overspread tion suitable for candidates for the exalted station the minds of the revellers; and the jollity and vi- of queen of the mighty empire. Being conducted vacity of obstreperous mirth were succeeded by a to the palace, they were committed to the custody thoughtful and peevish melancholy. So great was of Hagai, the eunuch, till the time when they the contrast in the effects on the animal spirits, should appear before the king. Mordecai, perceivthat an inexperienced observer could scarcely have ing from the language of the edict that all the believed the serious and taciturn visages before him most beautiful young women of the empire were to be the late merry and joyous crowd that had to assemble at the palace, without making an exthronged the festive board. Now that the hour of ception as to nation, kindred or condition, after reflection and self-examination had come upon the king, the natural benevolence of his nature, which neither despotic power, nor the influence of vicious courtiers could suppress, was moved by pity and commiseration for his ill-fated queen, whom he had "Who knows," he reasoned, "but that it may condemned and punished while heated with wine. please the infinitely wise God of my fathers to Yet the edict had gone forth and without the clear- make her the accepted of the king, notwithstandest evidence of error or falsehood in the charge ing her having once offended him by her refusal ? preferred against her, could not consistently with And who shall say, if this should come to pass, that the dignity and the fixed and irreversible stern- the king's heart may not be touched by her, frail ness of the monarch's decrees, be annulled. The instrument though she be, to lighten the yoke of inquietude of the king did not escape the watchful and penetrating eyes of the courtiers, who rightly judging the cause, sought without delay to apply a remedy that should restore him to his wonted cheerfulness. Accordingly, the chief of the Magi, or wise men of the east, and the expounders of the Zendavista, prostrating himself before the king, begged, after the eastern custom, permission to speak, which being granted, he proceeded in the following manner. 64 her unhappy people ?" Inspirited by these reflections, he at once determined to open his mind to Esther and know her determination. Esther had learned the downfall of the unhappy queen, which rumor had spread with a thousand variations through every street and avenue of the great city, and though the object of her merciless jealousy, she could not repress a feeling of pity at her sudden and overwhelming reverse of fortune. 66 Then let the king know that all future mon- How cheerless, how desolate," she mused, archs and the people of every nation shall read in "must be that haughty, unbending spirit, thus the chronicles of Persia how Artaxerxes, the migh-struck down and levelled with the slaves she spurnty ruler of a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, ed! Those who trembled at her frown and felt regarding more the good of his people and the glo- death scarcely more terrible than her anger, now ry of his empire than his personal gratifications, mock her calamity' and pass her with scorn. That maintained the supremacy of his edicts and the God whom she blasphemed, has by a breath dispower of his authority, even over the queen of his pelled her greatness forever and sent her forth an choice and the wife of his bosom. So shall the outcast and exile from the scenes of her splendor, governors and rulers of the earth regard his gov- to drink the waters of bitterness and eat the bread ernment as a model, and himself as the imperso- of affliction. Pride, indeed, goes before destrucnation of princely greatness. But that his throne tion and a haughty spirit before a fall.'” may be surrounded by all that is beautiful and attractive, as well as glorious, his dutiful slave would humbly advise the king of kings to send forth a decree to all the satraps of the provinces, to search out the most beautiful and accomplished damsels in the bounds of their governments and send them to Susa, that the king may from their number choose a queen to adorn his throne in the place of Vashti, who forgetting the homage due to her lord has forfeited her place." Mordecai found her in a thougtful and meditative mood as he entered the room in which she sat, and asked with a smile, "Why, Esther, what unwelcome thoughts intrude upon you that your brow assumes so grave a cast?" "I was reflecting on the sudden fall and wretched state of the proud and unhappy Vashti," she replied. "And what think you, my daughter, of the beautiful virgins that flock in on every side to abide This speech was gratifying to the king, both as their chance for her place ?" VOL. XIII-76 66 "I have seen none of them," she replied with under no obligation to declare your people, and unaffected simplicity. "but suppose that none but very lovely damsels have approached the palace; for the decree admits of none but such." “Esther, child of my adoption and dearer to me than life, I am about to ask you a question, not prompted by idle curiosity, but for reasons on several accounts mighty and important, and I expect from your truthfulness a candid answer. For some time past I have observed even when you were most anxious to conceal it from me, that some secret cause of sorrow cast a gloom upon your spirits and corroded at your heart. This has given me trouble, for I think I have rightly judged the cause. Now be not troubled when you hear the question, for your answer will in no wise displease me, whether yes or no-and will determine my course as to what may follow. Then tell me, in all sincerity, do you not fervently and tenderly love the king of Persia ?" The countenance of Esther which had gradually grown paler and paler at Mordecai's solemn preface, now became crimson and she was silent. may without reproach be silent on that subject. I would not in the slightest degree influence your determination. Be guided by your own sense of propriety. But be not impelled by a vain ambition for distinction and earthly splendor, and in no wise think to aspire to the dignity of the queen without carrying along with you the affections of the heart. Speak boldly and determinately-I await your answer." There was a war of tumultuous feelings in that little bosom and her heart throbbed with a palpitating violence as she made several ineffectual efforts to speak. At length summoning duty to the aid of modesty, she said almost inaudibly, "I have striven in vain to subdue the ineffably tender emotions of my trembling heart towards the king, fearing that I sinned against the God of our people in loving the creature more than the Creator. Yet in my sleeping and my waking dreams he seems ever before me. His gentle voice, his manly and beautiful person, and his generous offers, remain ever before me like the delusions of a mirage." "I have taken you by surprise, my daughter," Then who shall forbid your introduction among continued he, “but my purpose is not a light one. the damsels at the palace?" asked Mordecai. “You as I have already told you, therefore be composed shall go my daughter, and may the God of Jacob and answer me frankly and ingenuously, if Artax-be with you and make you the instrument of future erxes has won by his generous and noble nature blessings upon your people." the affections of your young heart, and whether Having thus propitiously concluded his interview, you could be to him a tender and affectionate wife, Mordecai hastily set about the preparation necessaremembering always your service to your God?" ry for Esther's appearance at the palace. The fe"I, the wife of the king?" asked Esther with males already assembled were principally those of astonishment. the wealthy and powerful lords of Persia, who from "Even you," replied Mordecai with a smile; a long line of ancestors, softly and delicately our"and what is there to forbid it?" "Do you forget, my father, that we are Jews, a nation of bondsmen despised by this haughty people? And can you indulge for a moment the vain dream that the great king, who in youthful fervor, and then without a prospect of the throne, could offer to raise to the dignity of a princess an obscure Persian girl as he thought me, would suffer the thought to enter his mind of making a daughter of our people the queen of Persia ?" tured, inherited the most graceful and beautful persons, as well as the haughtiest and most supercilious bearing. Their appearance, as they promenaded in groups about the palace, was strikingly elegant and imposing. The splendor of their dresses, sparkling with gems and gold from their bosoms to the long trains that trailed upon the gorgeous carpets—their long silken tresses clustered with diamonds-their polished foreheads of dazzling whiteness and arched brows the soft, yet sparkling eye-the winning "Daughter," replied Mordecai, "I have forgot- smile and ivory teeth, the graceful attitude and elasten nothing, nor do I consider it a vain dream as tic, noiseless tread, gave to the beholder the idea your modesty terms it, that you should be thought of the bright spirits of a purer and better world. worthy to become the wife of the great king. This Yet here was no object to excite an unworthy pasproud people may apply to our nation what terms sion, and the illusion was without its foil. Most of reproach they please, but that cannot settle the of these damsels were known, one to another, eiquestion of merit. God, who searches the heart, ther by personal intercourse, or by the intimacy of knows who is most worthy of approbation and His their parents; and being generally equal by birth omnipotent will has but to conceive it, to accom- and station, they mingled in lively recreations, someplish what is impossible for man. The king's de- times with boisterous merriment, playing at Persian cree, that the beauty of his whole empire shall be games and filling the palace with shouts of wild presented to his eye for the selection of a queen, laughter, and at others, supposing a queen already allows no exception of nation or kindred, but com- chosen from their number, they in mock obeisance prehends all the most lovely young females in his prostrated themselves before their imagined misdominions. You are therefore not only privileged, tress, and by turns carried on long dialogues with but commanded to appear before him. You are her. On one of these outburst of jellity, the eu nuch, Hagai, jealous of his authority and deeming beauty, and every beholder started with an involtheir mirth rather undignified, entered their apartment with the double purpose of scolding their levity and of announcing the arrival of another beauty before introducing her. Contracting his brow and assuming a carriage of awful dignity, he stalked into the room and looking around upon them with a frown asked, "What means this noisy revelry? Have you forgotten where you are and for what purpose you are here assembled ? Would you win the king and is it by screams and frolicsome wantonness you expect to please him?" untary murmur of admiration. Here was now a sudden change of the scene: the exuberant merriment at once subsided and the unamiable passions of a corrupted nature, so lately reposing under the smiles of a cheerful gaiety, were roused into action. Envy and displeasure were plainly depicted in the countenances of the now silent gazers, and a cloud of malevolence darkened their brows There was no cheerful greeting nor merry welcome to Esther as had met the arrival of every other new comer; but on the contrary, a stately reserve and stately "Is the king very grave then?" asked a little hauteur marked the demeanor of all the beautiful black-eyed beauty sidling up to the eunuch with females around her. Had she been introduced by an expression of comic archness. "Then do show some proud title, or as the daughter of some powme what aspect to assume when I appear before erful lord, her reception would have been different, him? Is this the kind of look to win him?" she and whatever envy her beauty might have excited, continued, distorting her pretty little face into a would have been suppressed under the smiles of an horrid grimace. In vain the eunuch pursed up apparent welcome. But that an obscure and lowhis mouth and contracted his brow to look indig-born girl as her unannounced family and origin denant, the lurking disposition to laugh betrayed it-clared her, should be thrust among them as a comself in despite of him, and before he could utter petitor for the highest station in the empire was too the rebuke upon his tongue, another interposed: provoking to admit of courtesy or even of notice. "And how does the king look when in love? and what will he say to the favorite ?" Silence!" shouted the eunuch in a loud voice. "What! will he bawl out silence before one speaks?" she asked, purposely mistaking him. Does the king dance ?" enquired a third. "Do show us what measure he is fondest of." "This is an abuse of the plain intent of the king's decree," whispered an indignant beauty to her nearest associate, "it could never mean that the vulgar herd should be included in the selection of damsels; for what affinity can there be in the sentiments, education and association of ideas, of the king and the low and contracted views of an unreSeveral others joining in the request, they gath-fined and disgusting plebeian? This creature, it ered around the eunuch, struggling for his dignity, is plain from her concealment of her family, is and joining their hands began to bound and dance some vulgar adventurer, who, made insolent by a in the wildest glee. Striving in vain to assume a little personal comliness that nature in a freak has look of awful reproof, for in whichsoever way he thrown away upon her, presumes to thrust herself turned, a pair of bright mischief-looking eyes en- among her superiors, not surely with any expeccountered his mock-frown, he burst into an irresist- tation of pleasing the eye of the king with her ible fit of laughter, and crying out, "get away you despicable abasement, but for the purpose of admad imps," burst through their circle and ran out vancing her miserable pretensions by her present of the room. association." The joyous peals of laughter and the romping game still continued till interrupted a second time by the entrance of Hagai, who now introduced a young female covered with a long flowing vail. Her eyes were bent upon the floor, and her, frame seemed to be agitated by a slight tremor. Her dress was neat and tastefully fitted to her graceful form, but by her own choice without splen dor or superfluous ornament. 66 “We will make her repent her impudence," replied her listener, "by exercising our wit and mockery upon her. She shall become the butt and ridicule of the palace." This answer brought forth an exulting fit of laughter, and the unamiable pair fully determined to carry out the suggestion and to harass the gentle and meek Esther with their malevolent derision. How unaptly joined to fair and beautiful beings Here is another competitor," said the eunuch, seems an envious and evil spirit, connecting in one "and when you see her face you will say a dan- the two contrasts of loveliness and disgusting degerous one. Behold!" continued he suddenly strip-formity. There is something so inexpressibly deping away her vail. "Her name, she says, is Es-lightful in the contemplation of the buoyant spirther. Whence from, or how descended, she de-its and merry laughter of happy maidenhood, that clines answering. Yet the damsel is entitled to we naturally associate pure and heavenly feelings the same distinctions and privileges with the proud- with the beautiful beings before us; and doubly reest titles among you.” pulsive and unnatural seem the dark and malignant "Esther's countenance, suffused with a glow of passions when coupled with so winning an exteoffended modesty as the eunuch stripped away her rior. But the vices of progenitors are infused, vail, exhibited a picture of the most dazzling like their blood, into the natures of their posterity, |