Professor W. G. Elmslie, D.D.: Memoir and Sermons

by William Gray Elmslie

Ah, what a new world we are in now! what a new light floods everything! The queen felt it. All that was noble, all that was good in her waked and gained the upper hand, and crushed down her baseness, and her meanness, and her selfishness. And yet heroism had a struggle with the weakness of the flesh. That is nothing strange. Remember Christ in Gethsemane: "Oh, watch with Me, with your human sympathy and fellowship, in My dire hour of need!" It was a cry like that that made Esther send back that message to Mordecai. She wanted to feel the binding force of the ties of common human brotherhood that connected her with her people to make her strong. She saw how it was. Away from them, and living alone, proudly, selfishly, her heart had got hard, and she could not go out among them; but it would mean a deal for her during those days if she knew that in every Jewish home men and women, young men and maidens, and little children, from morning till night, were fasting, and by the pain and abstinence of fasting kept thinking, from morning till night, of the deadly danger hanging over them, and Esther steeling herself to risk her life for love of them. Oh, wrapped round with that sense of human sympathy, nerved and braved by the thought of all these human lives hanging on her heroism, the weak woman conquered, and she could go and do the deed of valour!

But one thing more: the other element, the sense of her own weakness, her own impotence—for that she needed to fall back on God. Ah, if it were the case simply of a nation pleading with her to intercede on their behalf, she could not have done that all alone! But when she herself, through those two days, lived face to face with God, till this world was filled with His presence, till all the old stories of the generous rescues of bygone days were blazing resplendent before her eyes, guaranteeing that it was a call of God, that God would be behind her and with her and that His strength would be sufficient for her weakness—so backed with intimate love and sympathy with her fellow-men, and a strong faith in God, she could go and do her duty. Look at this striking contrast. Read that first refusal of hers—selfish, self-centred, cowardly, prudent. I think you feel all through it a restlessness, a dissatisfaction, a vacillation, a nervous excitement, a sense of uneasiness, a hidden doubt whether in saving her life she may not be losing it. Read that reply now, when she pledges herself to go and dare the king's deadly rage. How grand, and majestic, and calm it rings out! solemn, earnest, like the voice of a brave veteran going on a forlorn hope, but with the tranquillity, the serene certainty, of a brave heart doing what it knows to be duty. Ah, the man that goes through this world regardless of right or wrong, not asking what is duty, taking and choosing what shall be for his own advantage, trimming, and chopping, and setting his sails to catch every breeze of dishonourable prosperity, the restless heart that made response hanging upon himself, every step his own, if wrong then the upbraiding and the remorse all will be his. Oh, the sweetness, the grandeur, the calmness of the man who has asked simply, in any circumstances of danger and difficulty, "What is right? what is duty? what is the will of God? what alone can and ought to be done?" and then does it, ay, with death hanging over. He can sleep tranquilly. He is not responsible for the issue, no matter what it be. Here on earth he has done the right, done his duty, and the responsibility rests on God.

Esther, by that deed of heroism, delivered God's people from destruction. In her measure she did the same thing that Christ did perfectly later. Like Him, too, she laid her own life down on the altar. That it was not sacrificed does not diminish the value of the offering. A man does not need to perish in saving another from drowning, if he plunge into the wild, stormy sea, to deserve an admiration as great as if he had perished in the task.

She did a deed of Christ. That deed roused the admiration of her day and generation. That deed of hers was told with kindling eyes and ringing voice, and pride and triumph, from father to child, generation after generation. That deed of hers stood out as a pledge, a guarantee, of the reality of God's purpose for His kingdom on earth. By her deed, in her own day and generation, she saved God's people from imminent destruction; by that deed, preserved in history, she lifted up and made strong the hope and faith of generations after. And so, rightfully, her story finds its place in that long record of the hearts, noble, and brave, and true, who, for love of men and faith in God, at the bidding of Heaven, loved not their own lives to death, but laid them down for their brethren.

Oh, we men and women have got to learn this lesson from this Bible of ours—the real service of God, that is real religion, and that does build God's kingdom on earth, is done not altogether, by a long way, in our churches, in our religious exercises of worship; but done in purity, love, and truth, and goodness, out of generous kindliness to one another, at the bidding of God, through all the common chapters that make up our daily life.

X.
THE EXAMPLE OF THE PROPHETS.

"Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example."—James v. 10.

WE possess the books produced in olden times by a number of different nations. Each national literature has its own peculiarities. The literature of Israel has various features that are very characteristic of it. Among them all, one stands out and is unique. All along the nation had a conviction that they were destined to be the greatest nation in the world, and they believed that this destiny of theirs lay in the fact that through their government the world was to be made good, righteous, holy, and happy. They believed that God had a large plan, embracing the whole world in its operations; they believed that God was using all the different races as tools to work out that design of His; but they held that infinitely beyond all lesser instruments, He had made up His mind to employ Israel in accomplishing that great purpose of His high heart; through Israel He was to make the whole world into one Divine kingdom, ruled by Himself, and reverencing Himself as the one only God and Lord.