Hadassah
Est_2:7 : ’93And he brought up Hadassah.’94
A beautiful child was born in the capital of Persia. She was an orphan and a captive, her parents having been stolen from their Israelitish home and carried to Shushan, and had died, leaving their daughter poor and in a strange land. But her cousin, an Israelite, who had been carried into the same captivity, was attracted by the loneliness of the orphan. He educated her in his holy religion, and under the roof of that good man this adopted child began to develop a sweetness and excellency of character, if ever equaled, certainly never surpassed. Beautiful Hadassah! Could that man who adopted her as his daughter ever spare her from his household? Her artlessness, her girlish sports, her innocence, her orphanage, had wound themselves thoroughly around his heart, just as around each parent’92s heart among us there are tendrils climbing and fastening and blossoming, and growing stronger. I expect he was like others who have loved ones at home,’97wondering sometimes if sickness will come and death and bereavement. Alas! Worse than anything that the father expects happens to his adopted child. Ahasuerus, a princely scoundrel, demands that Hadassah, the fairest one in all the kingdom, become his wife. Worse than death was marriage to such a monster of iniquity! How great the change when this young woman left the home where God was worshiped and religion honored, to enter a palace devoted to pride, idolatry, and sensuality! ’93As a lamb to the slaughter!’94
Ahaseurus knew not that his wife was a Jewess. At the instigation of the infamous prime-minister, the king decreed that all the Jews in the land should be slain. Hadassah pleads the cause of her people, breaking through the rules of the court, and presenting herself in the very face of death, crying: ’93If I perish, I perish.’94 Oh, it was a sad time among that enslaved people! They had all heard the decree concerning their death. Sorrow, gaunt and ghastly, sat in thousands of households, and mothers wildly pressed their infants to their breasts as the days of massacre approached, praying that the same sword-stroke which slew the mother might also slay the child, rose-bush and bud perishing in the same blast.
But Hadassah is busy at court. The hard heart of the king is touched by her story, and although he could not reverse his decree for the slaying of the Jews, he sent forth an order that they should arm themselves for defense. On horseback, on mules, on dromedaries, messengers sped through the land bearing the king’92s dispatches, and a shout of joy went up from that enslaved people at the faint hope of success. I doubt not many a rusty blade was taken down and sharpened. Unbearded youths grew stout as giants at the thought of defending mothers and sisters. Desperation braced up cowards into heroes, and fragile women grasping their weapons swung them about the cradles, impatient for the time to strike the blow in behalf of their households.
The day of massacre dawned. Government officials, armed and drilled, cowed before the battle shout of the oppressed people. The cry of defeat rang back to the palaces, but above the mountains of dead, above seventy-five thousand crushed and mangled corpses, sounded the triumph of the delivered Jews, and their enthusiasm was as when the Highlanders came to the relief of Lucknow, and the English men and women (only a handful that could not be called an army), who stood in the very jaws of death, at the sudden arrival of assistance and rescue, lifted the shout above belching cannon and the death-groan of hosts, crying, ’93We are saved! We are saved!’94
My subject affords me opportunity of illustrating what Christian character may be under the greatest disadvantages. There is no Christian now exactly what he wants to be. Your standard is much higher than anything you have attained unto. If there be any man so puffed up as to be thoroughly satisfied with the amount of excellence he has already attained, I have nothing to say to such an one. But to those who are dissatisfied with past attainments, who are toiling under disadvantages which are keeping them from being what they ought to be, I have a message from God. You each of you labor under difficulties. There is something in your temperament, in your worldly circumstances, in your calling, that acts powerfully against you. Admitting all this, I introduce to you Hadassah of the text, a noble and good woman, notwithstanding the most gigantic difficulties. She whom you might have expected to be one of the worst of women, is one of the best.
In the first place, our subject is an illustration of what religious character may be under orphanage. This Bible line tells a long story about Hadassah. ’93She had neither father nor mother.’94 A nobleman had become her guardian, but there is no one who can take the place of a parent. Who so able at night to hear a child’92s prayer; or at twilight to chide youthful wanderings; or to soothe youthful sorrows? An individual will go through life bearing the marks of orphanage. It will require more strength, more persistence, more grace, to make such an one the right kind of a Christian. He who at forty years loses a parent must reel under the blow. Even down to old age men are accustomed to rely upon the counsel, or be powerfully influenced by the advice of parents, if they are still alive. But how much greater the bereavement when it comes in early life, before the character is self-reliant, and when naturally the heart is unsophisticated and easily tempted. And yet behold what a nobility of disposition Hadassah exhibited! Though father and mother were gone, grace had triumphed over all disadvantages. Her willingness to self-sacrifice; her control over the king; her humility; her faithful worship of God, show her to have been one of the best of women.
There are those who did not enjoy remarkable early privileges. Perhaps, like the beautiful captive of the text, you were an orphan. You had huge sorrows in your little heart. You sometimes wept in the night when you knew not what was the matter. You felt sad sometimes even on the playground. Your father or mother did not stand in the door to welcome you when you came home from a long journey. You still feel the effects of early disadvantages, and you have sometimes offered them as a reason for your not being as thoroughly religious as you would like to be. But these excuses are not sufficient. God’92s grace will triumph if you seek it. He knows what obstacles you have fought against, and the more trial the more help. After all, there are no orphans in the world, for the great God is the Father of us all.
Again, our subject is an illustration of what religion may be under the pressure of poverty. The captivity and crushed condition of this orphan girl, and of the kind man who adopted her, suggest a condition of poverty. Yet, from the very first acquaintance we had with Hadassah we find her the same happy and contented maiden. It was only by compulsion she was afterward taken into a sphere of honor and affluence. In the humble home of Mordecai, who adopted her, she was a light that illumined every privation. In some period in almost every man’92s life there comes a season of straitened circumstances when the severest calculation and most rigid economy are necessary in order to subsistence and respectability. At the commencement of business, at the entrance upon a profession, when friends are few and the world is afraid of you because there is a possibility of failure, many of the noblest hearts have struggled against poverty, and are now struggling. To such I bear a message of good cheer. You say it is a hard thing for you to be a Christian. This constant anxiety, this unresting calculation, wear out the buoyancy of your spirit, and although you have perhaps told no one about it, cannot I tell that this is the very trouble which keeps you from being what you ought to be? You have no time to think about laying up treasures in heaven, when it is a matter of great doubt whether you will be able to pay your next quarter’92s rent. You cannot think of striving after a robe of righteousness until you can get means enough to buy an overcoat to keep out the cold. You want the Bread of Life, but you think you must get along without that until you can buy another barrel of flour for your wife and children. Sometimes you sit down discouraged and almost wish you were dead. Christians in satin slippers, with their feet on damask ottoman, may smile at such a class of temptations, but those who themselves have been in the struggle and grip of hard misfortune can appreciate the power of these evils to hinder the souls. We admit the strength of the temptation, but then we point to Hadassah, her poverty equaled by her piety. Courage down there in the battle! Hurl away your disappointment! Men of half your heart have, through Christ, been more than conquerors. In the name of God, come out of that! The religion of Christ is just what you want out there among the empty flour barrels and beside the cold hearths. You have never told anyone of what a hard time you have had, but God knows it as well as you know it. Your easy times will come after a while. Do not let your spirits break down mid-life. What if your coat is thin? Run fast enough to keep warm. What if you have no luxuries on your table? High expectations will make your blood tingle better than the best Madeira. If you cannot afford to smoke, you can afford to whistle. But merely animal spirits are not sufficient; the power of the Gospel’97that is what you want to wrench despair out of the soul and put you forward into the front of the host, encased in impenetrable armor. It does not require extravagant wardrobe and palatial residence and dashing equipage to make a man rich. The heart right the estate is right. A new heart is worth the world’92s wealth in one roll of bank bills; worth all sceptres of earthly power bound in one sheaf; worth all crowns combined in one coronet. Many a man without a farthing in his pocket has been rich enough to buy the world out and have stock left for larger investment. It is not often that men of good habits come to positive beggary, but among those who live in comfortable houses all about you, among honest mechanics, and professional men who never say a word about it, there are exhibitions of heroism and endurance such as you may never have imagined. These men who ask no aid; who demand no sympathy; who with strong arm and skilful brain push their own way through, are Hannibals scaling the Alps; are Hercules slaying the lion; are Moses in God’92s name driving back the seas. Hadassah with her needle has done braver things than C’e6sar with a sword.
Again, our subject illustrates what religion may be when in a strange land, or far from home. Hadassah was a stranger in Shushan. Perhaps brought up in the quiet of rural scenes, she was now surrounded by the dazzle of a city. Heads as strong as hers have been turned by the transit from country to city. More than that, she was in a strange land. Yet in that loneliness she kept the Christian’92s integrity, and was as consistent among the allurements of Shushan as among the kindred of her father’92s house. Perhaps some of you are now far away from the home of your fathers. You came across the seas. The sepulchres of your dead are far away. Whatever may be the comfort and adornment of your present home, you cannot forget the place of your birth, though it may have been lowly and unhonored. You often dream of your youthful days, and in the silent twilight run off to the distant land and seem to see your forsaken home, just as it was when your people were all alive. Though you may have hundreds of friends around you, you often feel that you are strangers in a strange land. God saw the bitter partings when your families were scattered. He watched you in the ship’92s cabin floundering the stormy seas. He knew the bewilderment of your disembarkation on a strange shore, and your wanderings up and down this land have been under an eye that never sleeps, and felt by a heart that always pities. Stranger far from home, you have a companion in the beautiful Hadassah, as good in Shushan as in her native Jerusalem. Indeed, very many of you are distant from the place of your nativity. Some of you may be pilgrims from the warm South, or from hardier climes than ours, from latitudes of deeper snows and sharper frosts. You have come down in these regions for purposes of thrift and gain. You have brought your tents and pitched them here, and you seldom now go back again except to visit the old village with wide streets and plenty of trees, on some holiday. This is not the climate in which many of you were born. These mothers are not the neighbors who came to the old homestead to greet you into life. These churches are not those under the shadow of which your grandfather was buried. These are not the ministers of Christ who out of baptismal font sprinkled your baby brow. Far away the kirk! Far away the homestead! Far away the town! Have you formed habits which would not have seemed right in the places and times of which we speak? Have you built an altar in your present abode? Is the religion of olden time once planted in your heart come up in glorious harvest? Is your present home a eulogy upon that from which you were transplanted? Then are ye worthy companions of Hadassah, the stranger as holy in Shushan as in Jerusalem?
Again, our subject illustrates what religion may be under the temptation of personal attractiveness. The inspired record says of the heroine of my text, ’93She was fair and beautiful.’94 Her very name signified, ’93a myrtle.’94 Yet the admiration and praise and flattery of the world did not blight her humility. The simplicity of her manners and behavior equaled her extraordinary attractions. It is the same divine goodness which puts the tinge on the rose’92s cheek and the whiteness into the lily and the gleam on the wave, that puts color in the cheek and sparkle in the eye and majesty in the forehead and symmetry into the form and gracefulness into the gait. But many through the very charm of their personal appearance have been destroyed. There are many flowers that bow down so modestly you cannot see the color in their cheek until you lift up their head, putting your hand under their round chin. Any kind of personal attractions, whether they be those of the body, the mind, or the heart, may become temptations to pride, and foolish assumption. While the most of us will not have the same kind of temptation which Hadassah must have felt from her attractiveness of personal appearance, there may be some to whom it will be an advantage to hold up the character of the beautiful captive who sacrificed not her humility and earnestness of disposition to the world’92s admiration and flattery.
Again, our subject exhibits what religion may be under bad domestic influences. Hadassah was snatched from the godly home into which she had been adopted and introduced into the abominable associations of which wicked Ahasuerus was the centre. What a whirl of blasphemy and drunkenness and licentiousness! No altar, no prayer, no Sabbath, no God! If this captive girl can be pure and holy there, then it is possible to be so anywhere.
There are a great many of the best people of the world who are obliged to contend with the most adverse domestic influences, children who have grown up into the love of God under the frown of parents, and under the discouragement of bad example. Some sister of the family, having professed the faith of Jesus, is the subject of unbounded satire inflicted by brothers and sisters. Yea, Hadassah was not the only upright wife who had a queer husband. It is no easy matter to maintain correct moral principles when there is a companion disposed to scoff at them, and to ascribe every imperfection of character to hypocrisy. What a hard thing for one member of the family to rightly keep the Sabbath when others are disposed to make it a day of revelry; or to inculcate propriety of speech in the minds of children when there are others to offset the instructions by loose and profane utterances; or to be regularly in attendance upon church when there is more household work demanded for the Lord’92s Day than is demanded for any secular day. Do I speak to any laboring under these blighting disadvantages? My subject is full of encouragement. Vast responsibilities rest upon you. Be faithful, though you stand as much alone as did Lot in Sodom or Jeremiah in Jerusalem or Jonah in Nineveh or Hadassah in the court of Ahasuerus. There are trees which grow the best when their roots clutch among the jagged rocks, and you verily have but poor soil in which to develop, but grace is a thorough husbandman and can raise a crop anywhere. Glassware is moulded over the fire, and in the same way you are to be fitted as a vessel of mercy. The best timber must have on it saw and gouge and beetle. The foundation stone of every house came out only under crowbar and blast. Files and wrenches and hammers belong to the Church. The Christian victory will be bright just in proportion as the battle is hot. Never despair of being a thorough Christian in any household which is not worse than the court of Ahasuerus.
Finally, our subject illustrates what religion may be in high worldly position. The last we see in the Bible of Hadassah is that she has become the Queen of Persia. Prepare now to see the departure of her humility and self-sacrifice and religious principle. As she goes up you may expect grace to go down. It is easier to be humble in the obscure house of her adopted father than on a throne of dominion. But you misjudge this noble woman. What she was before, she is now’97the myrtle. Applauded for her beauty and her crown, she forgets not the cause of her suffering people, and with all simplicity of heart, still remains a worshiper of the God of heaven.
Noble example, followed only by a very few. I address some who, through the goodness of God, have risen to positions of influence in the community where you live. In law, in merchandise, in medicine, in mechanics, and in other useful occupations and professions, you hold an influence for good or for evil. Let us see whether, like Hadassah, you can stand elevation. Have you as much simplicity of character as once you evidenced? Do you feel as much dependence upon God, as much your own weakness, as much your accountability for talents intrusted? Or are you proud and overexacting and ungrateful and unsympathetic and worldly and sensual and devilish? Then you have been spoiled by your success, and you shall not sit on this throne with the heroine of my text. In the day when Hadassah shall come to the grander coronation, in the presence of Christ and the bannered hosts of the redeemed, you will be poor indeed.
There are thousands of men who can easily endure to be knocked down of misfortune, but who are utterly destroyed if lifted up of success. Satan takes them to the top of the pinnacle of the temple and shoves them off. Their heads begin to whirl and they lose their balance and down they go.
While last autumn all through the forests there were luxuriant trees with moderate out-branch, and moderate height, pretending but little, there were foliage shafts that shot far up, looking down with contempt on the whole forest, clapping their hands in the breeze and shouting, ’93Aha! Do you not wish you were as high up as we are?’94 But later a blast let loose from the north came rushing along and grappling the boasting oaks, hurled them to the ground, and, as they went down, an old tree that had been singing psalms with the thunder of one hundred summers, cried out, ’93Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.’94 And humble hickory and pine, and chestnut, that had never said their prayers before, bowed their heads as much as to say, ’93Amen!’94
’93God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.’94 Take from my subject encouragement. Attempt the service of God, whatever your disadvantages, and whatever our lot, let us seek that grace which outshone all the splendors of the palaces of Shushan.
Autor: T. De Witt Talmage