LECTURE IV.

THE IRREVERSIBLE DECREE.

CAN we really give credit to the historical statement here made, that so heartless and cruel a decree should go forth from any monarch against his own subjects-an inoffensive and industrious population-as that recorded of king Ahasuerus against the Jewish exiles? Even supposing that this historical narrative is verified by far more than the usual evidences, which lead us to believe the records of the past, may there not be doubt cast over the whole transaction, by the very extravagance of cruelty here attributed to the monarch and his adviser? May we not say, from our knowledge of human nature, that the heart of man is not capable of deeds so arbitrary and tyrannical? Or if we suppose that such deeds have ever happened, how far back in the annals of the world must we go; to what climes and ages of barbarism; under what debasing and sanguinary forms of religion, must we look; and what are the exciting causes which provoke such iniquity? Alas! the doctrines of the Bible and the gloomy teachings of

history-in these pages and out of them—are only too much alike, when they give us the darkest views of human nature, and point us to a hidden source of deep depravity in man himself as the only satisfactory solution of earth's scenes of cruelty and blood. Early in the history of Adam's fallen race have we these impressive teachings, "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Gen. vi. 5. Before this God had said to the serpent, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." Gen. iii. 15. In these two verses, we have the key to all the cruelties and oppressions of man; and especially to the remarkable fact that the cruelty of man has never been more fierce than when it has raged against the church of God. We may go far back in history, if you please; and among its first records and in its very first mention of blood-shedding we have a religious feud, and the innocent and the inoffensive falling before the guilty. What a picture is that! The first born of men is the first murderer, the first persecutor for religion's sake: the first man to die is the first martyr of piety; and we read no sooner of an altar smoking to the God of mercy, than we hear a voice of blood, crying out from the newstained earth to the God of justice. And the war thus early begun, has never ended: and as it began between brother and brother, as the seed of the

serpent and the seed of the woman sprang from the common mother, so no ties between king and subject, between friend and friend, are regarded in this fatal strife. The brother betrays the brother to death; the father, the son; the children, the parents. Are these strange scenes in human history, so that the iniquity of Ahasuerus must be discredited for want of a parallel? Look back less. than two thousand years to that Roman emperor whose name has become proverbial for tyranny, who wished that all his subjects had but one neck that a single stroke might end them all; whose character is portrayed by the current charge, true or false, that he set his capital on fire and danced to his own trifling music, in the light afforded; and this man may be found enveloping his Christian subjects in garments dipped in pitch and setting them on fire as miserable torches to illuminate the imperial gardens. We may descend fifteen hundred years later, and landing in the capital of modern, polished, intelligent France, on the morning of August 24th 1572, we may see a king, instructed in the Romish faith, and solemnly called by the authority of the Pope, "His Most Christian Majesty,"-issue and execute a decree for the slaughter of his Protestant subjects, that surpasses in atrocity any that can be found even in the records of kingly crimes. Let indeed the decree of Ahasuerus be justly considered as humane in comparison with this later edict. Even Haman was willing to publish his intentions;

nearly a year's notice was given that the Jews might escape or resist; and he was but carrying on a war that had existed already without a truce for a thousand years. But the decree of the French monarch was against his own best subjects; was in defiance of the most solemn promises and treaties of friendship; was carefully concealed by tokens of kindness up to the very hour when every preparation was made; and burst upon the defenceless heads of the devoted victims like a sudden peal of thunder from a cloudless sky.

The great bell of the palace, used only upon occasions of public rejoicing, gave the signal in the night; the bells of churches, devoted to the God of peace, answered; and the discharge of fire arms increased the tokens of alarm. A white cross, worn on the hat, distinguished the faithful members of the Romish church; their priests, with a drawn sword in one hand and a crucifix in the other, preceded the assassins, and urged them on; and by the dawn of day Paris exhibited an appalling spectacle: headless bodies were thrown from the windows; the streets were filled with carcases; and the gateways were blocked up with the dying and the dead. The miserable king, Charles IX., fired upon the miserable populace from the windows of his palace, disfigured the lifeless body of one of his bravest and most loyal subjects, and uttered his coarse jests over the work his hands had thus done. A potentate of higher religious claims than the king of

France, even the Pope of Rome, ordered public thanksgivings to be made to Almighty God for the massacre of the Huguenots; struck off a medal to commemorate the great event; (see page 103;) and caused a painting to be made, representing the scene, that hangs to this day upon the walls of the Vatican. We might descend within the memory of living men to a period when such teachings of Popery had bronght forth their ripe fruit, and see a nation throwing off restraints, and showing that the hearts, not only of despots, but of men as men, are "desperately wicked." The lesson is only too frequently repeated; and we may not reject this record, because it is so unlike man, but the rather strengthen our faith in a narrative that is unhappily so true to

nature.

The decree of Ahasuerus went forth; and now the unbending Mordecai passes before us with his clothes rent, with sackcloth and ashes upon him, and uttering a loud and bitter cry. This is no more unusual to express the grief of an Oriental, than petitions or mass-meetings would be among us. No one there thinks of remonstrating with the government; and the loud outcries of aggrieved individuals excite no special surprise. Can we draw back the veil and read the counsels of God? Can we understand why, in the orderings of his Providence, such dark clouds are allowed, even for a little while, to rest upon the righteous; why such sorrows rend their hearts; and why the voice of