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THE BOOK OF ESTHER:
A SPECIMEN OF WHAT PASSES AS THE INSPIRED
WORD OF GOD.
BY AUSTIN HOLYOAKB.
The Book of Esther ! What is there in that worthy of special notice ?
It is a part of Holy Writ seldom or never referred to in the controver
sies of the time, and rarely used to point an argument or adorn a tale
in pulpit sermons. Some may say, why drag an obscure, unimportant
book into prominence, and attack that which is not of much moment
even to Christians ? To this it may be answered, that to a true believer,
nothing in the sacred book is trivial—all is inspired, and therefore all
is vital truth. If we view it in that light, it will be found to be our
strongest argument. The Book of Esther is still retained in all autho
rised editions of the Bible, and the most orthodox members of the
Church maintain that you cannot eliminate a single word or passage
withoiit incurring the wrath of Almighty God ; and we see how even
a bishop may bring down upon his devoted head the severest eccle
siastical censure, and be maligned, and shunned, and prosecuted by his
brethren of the cloth for daring to doubt the accuracy of some accounts
of events which never could have taken place as there related. But it
is not necessary now to go particularly into the question of inspiration.
We will take the book as we find it, and see what passes as the inspired
Word of God, and by following the text closely see how much better it
is than other writings. It must strike any observant reader that there
is nothing whatever on the surface of this part of the Bible that can
account for its being placed as a canonical book. It does not relate
any of God’s doings among his favourite children ; the Lord does not
direct the massacres ; Jehovah is not the patron of Mordecai and his
amiable niece—in short, neither God, the Lord, nor Jehovah are men
tioned at all throughout the whole ten chapters. One might say, if he
possessed the confidence of a priest, that this book was never inspired
by God. There are thousands who believe this book to be inspired,
because they dare not doubt. They have been taught to believe, and
they do believe. The human mind, once given to a belief in the super
natural, is open to receive anything as truth, however absurd or con
trary to experience it may be. Where are you to stop ? What are to
be the bounds of belief? Is not everything possible to a God of infinite
power ? And shall petty mortals dare to limit the eternal ? If an oc
currence is not easily comprehensible, what a relief it is to one’s head
to say, “ God did it.” That is sufficient, with some people, to account
for anything.
The Book of Esther, if perused as a narrative, will be found to be a
plain, unvarnished tale, possessing but few of the graces of rhetoric,
and chronicling the doings of by no means brilliant characters.
In the year 518 before Christ, commenced the reign of Ahasuerus, a
very small hero in his way, but through whose influence and by whose
sanction many extraordinary deeds were done, and many atrocities com
mitted. He was a king reigning over a vast region, extending from
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The Book of Esther.
India to Ethiopia, and including a hundred and twenty-seven provinces.
Marian Evans, in her translation of Feuerbach, says something to the
effect that Christianity is a religion of gourmands, as throughout the
Bible there is a continual record of feasting and jollity. Even the
Lord himself was entertained at dinner by Abraham. Accordingly, the
Book of Esther opens with an account of a great feast given by the
king, in the third year of his reign, to all his princes and his servants;
the power of Persia and of Media, the nobles and princes of the pro
vinces being before him. This carouse lasted a hundred and four score
days, during which time he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom
and the honour of his excellent majesty. Not content with the first
feast, at the end of this time he commenced again, and made a feast
unto all the people that were in Shushan the palace, both unto great
and small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the palace. The
number seven is frequently used in this book, and it is a favourite number
with Bible writers, and no doubt accounts for the fact that the whole
book is in a state of “ sixes and sevens 1” A minute account is given
of the upholstery of the apartments, and of the metal of which the
drinking cups were made. There was royal wine in abundance, and
the drinking was according to law—that is, every man was to do accord
ing to his pleasure, and no doubt many of them took more than was
good for them, for the king himself set the example. Also Vashti, the
queen, made a feast for the women in the royal house. Now, Vashti
is the only woman in the book who displays any virtues or qualities
worthy of admiration ; but her virtues, which should have been her
glory and protection, are her ruin, and the treatment she received can
not be justified in modern times upon any principle of justice or morality.
On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine
(in plain English, when he was intoxicated), he commanded his seven
chamberlains to bring Vashti, the queen, before him, with the crown
royal, to show the people and the princes her beauty, for she was fair
to look on. But, like a modest and sedate woman, she refused to pre
sent herself to the rude gaze of the king and his court. Therefore was
the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him. He at once went
to law about the matter, by consulting the wise men who understood
the law, also the seven princes of Persia and Media, among whom wa$
one Memucan. The king asked what should be done with Vashti for
disobeying his orders, for he seemed terribly afraid of a disobedient
wife. Memucan answered and said, the queen hath not done wrong to
the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the people that are
in all the provinces, when it should become known, for the wives would
despise their husbands if they should learn that the king had allowed
the queen to disobey his commands without rebuke. This noble prince
ended his address for the prosecution by the following suggestion : If
it please the king, let there go a royal commandment from him, ana
let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that it
be not altered, that Vashti come no more before King Ahasuerus ; and
let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she.
And when the king’s decree which he shall make shall be published
throughout all his empire (for it is great), all the wives shall give to
their husbands honour, both to the great and small. . The queen was
never called upon to offer an explanation or justification of her conduct,
there was no speech for the defence, and the king, who sat as Judge
Ordinary, decided on his own case, and immediately pronounced a
decree nisi, condemning the respondent in all costs. And thus poor
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Vashti was divorced and disgraced for possessing a virtue which is
universally admired among enlightened and refined people.
Now if there is any meaning at all in this disgraceful transaction—
and of course there must be a meaning of deep import in every word
of the sacred book, for do not preachers and commentators weave won
derful discourses out of half lines and incomplete sentences, showing
what the inspired penmen meant to say, and even what the Deity him
self was thinking of, but which unfortunately the text itself in its
entirety furnishes no clue to ?—now if there is any meaning in this dis
graceful divorcement of Queen Vashti, it is, that women are to be
subject to their husbands in all things, whether their personal liberty
be endangered or their moral sense outraged or not. The translators
have called it “the decree of men’s sovereignty.” It is a transaction,
nevertheless, in which all the honour attaches to the queen who was
punished, and the odium to the king who is praised for the deed. It
is continually so with Bible morality—the good is put as the bad, and
the bad as the good. But, happily for humanity, they are rapidly out
growing such misleading teaching.
And out of this questionable transaction arise all the subsequent blood
and murder recorded in this delectable book. If any good is supposed
to have accrued to the world from the doings of Mordecai and Esther,
the Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways ! After the decree had
gone forth, the king cooled down, and when he became sober he thought
of Vashti, and how harsh he had been to her • but those who had coun
selled her banishment, not wishing him to relent, lest their own wives
might expect to be forgiven after having been condemned, suggested
that all the officers in all the provinces should be commissioned with
the very agreeable task of collecting together all the pretty girls they
could find and bringing them to Shushan, for the king to choose one from,
who should be queen instead of Vashti. This idea pleased him, and
he ordered it to be done. Now as the kingdom consisted of 127 pro
vinces, and all the pretty girls were collected together, the bevy of
beauties at Shushan must have been the finest ever seen at one exhibi
tion. But notwithstanding all these charms and counter-charms, the
king was really able to make a choice. The wonder is that the poor
man was not so overpowered, that he resolved to keep the whole of
them ! However, it took him nearly four years to make up his mind.
His choice ultimately fell upon Esther, the lady whose name furnishes
the title to the sacred book in which her career is recorded. She had
seven maidens to wait upon her, and was chosen in the seventh year of
thè reign of the king. We are not told what her age was at this time ;
but that is not remarkable, as it is generally very difficult to learn what
any lady’s age is I Esther was an orphan and a Jewess, but this latter
fact was carefully concealed from the king by order of Mordecai, the
“nursing father” of Esther, as he is called—as fine a specimen of the
cunning Hebrew as is to be found on record. The Jews at this time
were in captivity—a state little better than slavery. Mordecai and
Esther were first cousins, and Mordecai promptly availed himself of the
opportunity of selling his interesting relative to the highest bidder, but
with a shrewd eye to his own interests at the same time. During the
long while Esther was waiting her turn to be presented to the king,
Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women’s house, to
know how Esther did, and what should become of her. As soon as
Esther was crowned, Mordecai came forward, and “sat in the gate of
the king.” It is not clear what this means—it is very much like being
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The Book of Esther.
allowed to sit on the door step. Whilst he was thus “hanging about,”
he overheard two of the door-keepers express some intention of laying
hands on the king. This was an opportunity sent by Providence to
enable Mordecai to show his loyalty. He at once improved the occa
sion, and told Esther, who told the king, at the same time making the
king understand to whom he was indebted for the information. The
two conspirators were hanged, but Mordecai was not rewarded for his
zeal.
Haman was promoted to be chief over all the princes. All the king’s
servants, as in duty bound, bowed down and reverenced Haman ; but
Mordecai, being annoyed at being passed over, refused to bow down,
notwithstanding he was spoken to about it daily. He threw off his
reserve now that his cousin was queen, and told them that he belonged
to the “stiff-necked” race. This incensed Haman very much, and he
resolved to be revenged not alone on Mordecai, but upon his whole tribe.
Haman told the king that there was a certain people scattered abroad
and dispersed among the provinces of the kingdom, whose laws were
different, and who did not obey the king’s laws, therefore it was not for
the king’s profit to suffer them—mildly suggesting that they should be
destroyed, and offering ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of
those who should have the charge of the slaughter. As in the case of
poorVashti, the king without hesitation acquiesced, and seemed in a
hurry to get that bit of business off his hands. Letters were despatched
into every province, written in all the languages of the people, and
sealed with the king’s ring, with orders “ to destroy, to kill, and to
cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women,
in one day, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.” After this,
“ the king and Haman sat down to drink.”
It is the fashion with some people to praise Mordecai for his stubborn
will and manly spirit in refusing to bow down to the First Minister of
State, as though he had done it from a wholesome contempt of the
pomp and pride of court hirelings. But there is nothing in the text to
warrant that interpretation. In fact, no word is vouchsafed in explana
tion of why he refused, except that he was a Jew, and that certainly
gave him no virtue in the matter, for if he objected to the pride of
Haman the Gentile, it was only with the greater pride of Mordecai the
Jew. Mordecai belonged to the “ chosen people,” and we see in our
own day how people will strut and plume - themselves when clothed in
the garments of self-righteousness.
When Mordecai heard of the sanguinary decree, of course he was very
much alarmed, and did that silly and dirty trick peculiar to the favour
ites of the Lord—he tore his clothes and put on sack-cloth and ashes.
He went before the palace crying with a loud and bitter cry, but he was
too dusty to be allowed to enter into the king’s gate. Information of
Mordecai’s grief was conveyed to Esther, also of the state of his ward
robe, when she immediately sent him fresh raiment, with orders to take
away the sack-cloth and ashes ; but he preferred his rags and dirt.
Then the queen sent her chamberlain to Mordecai to know what troubled
him, and how it was. He sent her a copy of the decree, together with
all the particulars, with a request that she would go to the king and
make supplication for her people. There was some danger attendant
upon the carrying out of this request, as a law existed whereby all who
came to the king into the inner court without being called, should be
put to death, unless the king pardoned them ; and as the queen had not
seen her loving husband for a month, she was afraid to go to him un-
�The Book of Esther.
5
called. This was conveyed to Mordecai, wno replied—“ Think not
with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all
the Jews.” This determined Esther, who told Mordecai to gather to
gether all the Jews who were in town, and with them to fast three days
and three nights, and she and her maidens would do likewise. This
species of praying for success, is at best but an empty supplication.
Paine says the Jews never prayed but when they were in trouble, and
never for anything but victory, vengeance, and riches. But she said —
‘ ‘ I will go to the king, which is not according to the law : and if I
perish, I perish.” This was noble—this was daring, and worthy of a
heroine. One might expect from this that Esther was full of all noble
qualities. On the contrary, she had the smoothness of the leopard
with the ferocity of the tiger. Here she resolved, at all hazards to
herself, to beg for the lives of the Jews. But listen to the result of her
mission.
On the third day she ventured unbidden into the royal presence, and
to her great relief the king was overjoyed to see her, and said : “ What
wilt thou, Queen Esther ? and what is thy request ? it shall be even
given thee to the half of the kingdom ?” The king was a mighty man
at a feast, and Esther, knowing his strong point, and also anticipating
it would be favourably received, had prepared a banquet, to which she
invited him, including Haman in the invitation. Throughout Bible
history, it will be found that the pot and the platter formed either the
prelude or the sequel to nearly all great undertakings or events. Of
course the king accepted the invitation to dine out in his own house,
and Haman was only too happy and proud to attend him. After the
wine had gone round, the king again repeated his offer, that whatever
request Esther made, even to the half of his kingdom, it should be
granted. She was still cautious and hesitating, not being sure that the
roystering monarch was fed up to the proper pitch for her purpose; so
she said that if the king and Haman would come to another feast on the
following day, she would then make known her request. This was
agreed to. Then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad
heart. But his exultation was of short duration, for he had not gone
far before he nearly fell over that obstinate old Mordecai, who refused
to get up or move out of his way. This filled him with indignation,
but still he restrained himself till he reached home, when he sent for
his friends and for.Zeresh, his wife. “ And Haman told them of the
glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things
wherein the king had promoted him,” for he was a man of great self
importance, and was quite overpowered if he did not receive a proper
amount of deference from his presumed inferiors. After recounting
his wonderful position, he said : “Yet all this availeth me nothing so
long a,s I.see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.” His wife
and his friends told him to cheer up, and get a gallows made fifty cubits
high, and at the morrow’s banquet to speak unto the king that Mor
decai might be hanged thereon. This humane suggestion pleased
Haman much, and, like a modern Governor Eyre, he thereupon issued
his order for the erection of that neat piece of architecture—an instru
ment still used in this country to finish the education which the priest
begins.
It so happened, and very fortunately so for Mordecai, that the night
before this second banquet the king was not able to sleep, so he thought
he would read awhile, and therefore ordered the book of records to be
brought, and in this he found chronicled the name and services of Mor*
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The Book of Esther.
decai in informing of the two doorkeepers who had got up a little con
spiracy agaifist himself. The king asked what honour and dignity had
been done to Mordecai for this. He was told nothing. He exclaimed,
Who is in the court ? He was answered, Haman. Now, Haman, un
fortunately for himself, had gone there post haste, not waiting till the
morning, to crave the boon of being allowed to elevate poor Mordecai
fifty cubits high. It was an ominous moment for him. He was ordered
into the king’s presence, who, not giving him time to speak, asked :
“What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to
honour?” Now, Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the
king delight to do honour more than to myself? He therefore resolved
not to underdo the matter, and modestly proposed that the happy indi
vidual should be decked out in the royal apparel, the crown put upon
his head, the whole mounted upon the king’s horse, and led through
the streets of the city by one of the noblest princes, and to be pro
claimed before him, “ Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king
delighteth to honour.” But what was Haman’s utter astonishment and
consternation when he was told to make haste and do all he had said
unto Mordecai the Jew, the man whom he hated above all other men.
But this was not the last time in which Haman was destined to be
caught in his own trap. He hurried home hiding his head, and told
his wife and friends of his disappointment. He was a fallen Minister,
and they all felt that Mordecai, the Benjamin Disraeli of his time, would
lead the Opposition on to the Treasury benches. And while they were
talking, the messenger came to summons Haman to the second banquet
which Esther had prepared. But he was in no mood for eating. He
had not yet digested the bitter pill of Mordecai’s advancement. The
king again asked Esther what boon she craved. She said : “ Let my
life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. For we
are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish.”
Though five years had elapsed since their marriage, this appears to have
been the first time the king knew that his wife was a Jewess. He
asked, ‘ ‘ Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart
to do so ?” The king had forgotten all about the decree he had made
and signed with his own ring, for the utter destruction of the people
who were scattered throughout all his provinces. That was too small
a matter to dwell in his memory. Esther answered and said, “The
adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman.” Thq king rushed into
the garden in great fury, and whilst he was gone Haman became much
alarmed for his own»safety ; and when the king returned he found
Haman on his knees beseeching Esther to intercede with the king on
his behalf. The king mistook the meaning of the supplication, and
became jealous as well as angry. This sealed the fate of poor Haman,
who was immediately seized and his face covered. An obliging cham
berlain who was standing by, with the usual readiness of court syco
phants to help a fallen favourite, told the king that Haman had got
a gallows already erected, which was intended for Mordecai, the rising
minister. Upon this hint the king spake, and told them to hang Haman
thereon. “ So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had pre
pared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.” Thus
Haman was literally the architect of his own fortune, and ultimately
graced his own structure. But the king was not blameless in the matter
—he was more to blame than Haman himself, for he signed a san
guinary decree at the first time of asking, and without making the
slightest inquiry into the justice of what he was about to do. Yet this
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is the man into whose hands God had committed the care of a portion
of his “ chosen people. ” This justifies the saying that Christianity is
much indebted for its preservation to the vilest and silliest characters in
all ages and countries.
The king, as is the wont of monarchs, bestowed the dead man’s pro
perty upon his favourite, and Esther became enriched by Haman’s
death. Mordecai also experienced rapid promotion, as he was for the
first time introduced to the king as Esther’s relative. And the king
took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto
Mordecai ; and Esther set Mordecai over Jhe House of Haman. The
Jews’ star was now in the ascendant. The queen then besought the
king to revoke his edict against the Jews, which had been issued at
the instigation of Haman. Being a most yielding man, and having the
amiable weakness of granting everything to everybody at the moment
of asking, whether it was the slaughter of a whole race, or the hanging
of an individual even on his own new gallows, he consented without a
murmur to reverse what he had done a short time before, and com
manded Mordecai, saying—“ Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh
you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring ; for the writ
ing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring,
may no man reverse. ” Mordecai’s patience and perseverance were at
length rewarded, and his day of triumph had arrived. Having carte
blanche from the king, he availed himself of it to the fullest extent. He
■sent proclamations into all the provinces, in which he said “ the king
had granted the Jews in every city to gather themselves together, and
to stand for their life, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all
the power of the people and province that would assault them, both
little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.” Not
content with telling the Jews they might destroy, slay, and cause to
perish all who assaulted them, he ordered them all to be in readiness
on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month to avenge themselves on their
enemies. Mordecai then strutted out like a peacock to show his fine
feathers. He went out “ in royal apparel of blue and white, and with
a great crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen and purple :
and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad. The Jews had light,
and, gladness, and joy, and honour. And in every province, and in
every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came,
the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day. And many of
the people of the land became Jews ; for the fear of the Jews fell upon
them.”
V
Accordingly, on the fatal thirteenth of the twelfth month, the day on
which the Jews were to have been killed, the order of things was re
versed, for the Jews gathered themselves together in all the cities to lay
hands on such as sought their hurt ; and no man could withstand them ;
for the fear of them fell upon all people. All the king’s officials,
throughout the kingdom, like true time-servers and worshippers of
power, because the Prime Minister was a Jew, joined with the Jews
against their own countrymen ; and thus as bloody a coup a'état was
perpetrated in Asia in the year 509 before Christ, as that which took
place in France on the 2nd of December, 1851 years after this precious
Gospel came to bless mankind ! “ Thus the Jews smote all their
enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter, and destruction,
and did what they would unto those that hated them. And in Shushan
the palace, the Jews slew and destroyed five hundred men.” The ten
sons of Haman slew they, thus carrying out the barbarous doctrine
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The Book of Esther.
taught in this holy book, of visiting the sins of the father upon the
children. “On that day the number of those that were slain in Shushan
were brought before the king. And the king said unto Esther the
queen—The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan
the palace, and the ten sons of Haman ; what have they done in the
rest of the king’s provinces ? now what is thy petition ? and it shall be
granted thee : or what is thy request further? And it shall be done.”
Mark the fiendish answer of this tigress, sent of course by God to be
an instrument in the preservation of his favourite people. “ Then said
Esther—If it please the kin£, let it be granted to the Jews which are in
Shushan to do to-morrow also according unto this day’s decree, and let
Haman’s ten sons be hanged upon the gallows ! And the king com
manded it so to be done ; and the decree was given at Shushan ; and
they hanged Haman’s ten sons.” This was diabolical ferocity, prompted
by the direst spirit of revenge. Esther could not have forgotten that a
few minutes before the king had told her that the ten sons of Haman
had been slain, and therefore to hang them on the gallows was not with
the idea of killing them a second time, but merely for the gratification
of gloating over the ghastly corpses of ten men who had never injured
her, but who had the misfortune to be the sons of her enemy. This is
Bible morality, of which there are innumerable instances in this sacred
word of God. And so the slaughter went on, and the Jews gathered
themselves together on the fourteenth day, and in Shushan butchered
three hundred more men, and those in the provinces made up the total
number of victims seventy-five thousand. After this the Jews fell to
feasting and rejoicing, and called it a day of gladness, and resolved, at the
suggestion of Mordecai, to celebrate both the thirteenth and fourteenth
of the twelfth month as a festival every year. “ Then Esther the queen,
and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to confirm this, and
sent letters unto all the Jews in the 127 provinces, with words of peace
and truth.” “For Mordecai the Jew was next unto King Ahasuerus,
and great among the Jqws, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren,
seeking the wealth of bis people, and speaking peace to all his seed. ”
And thus ends this eventful history.
We close this blood-stained Book of Esther with feelings of loathing
and disgust. There is not one principle of morality inculcated through
out the entire narrative ; there is but one estimable or worthy character
depicted therein, and she is a victim ; the incidents recorded are inci
dents of drunkenness, domestic tyranny, lust, ambition, vacillation,
revenge, and wholesale and brutal murder of innocent men, women,
and children. There is no inspiration, no instruction, no moral eleva
tion in it. It is one dull, dead level of brutality aud animal indul
gence. The first chapter commences with a gross outrage upon the
delicacy of a sensitive woman, and ends by her being divorced and
disgraced, that “ man’s sovereignty ” may be upheld and proclaimed.
This can be quoted as an argument in favour of the oppression of one
half the human race, for does it not tally with that other passage in the
Bible, which says that woman shall be subject to the man ? Chapter
ii. enters into particulars of the utterly immoral way in which the king
chose a wife in succession to Vashti, and the calculating manner in
which Mordecai brought his foster daughter and relative to the market,
and sold her to the highest bidder. Chapter iii. is an account of an
ambitious minister, who, on being irritated and annoyed by a man
belonging to a despised race, who presumed upon his relationship to
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the queen, seeks to have his enemy and his enemy’s race destroyed ;
and where a king, who should be the guardian of his people, condemns
to death a large number of his subjects at the mere request of one man.
Chapter iv. depicts the real cause of all this mischief and commotion
in a state of the most abject fear. There is no reason why Mordecai
should have hated and annoyed Haman, unless it was from a feeling of
envy at his elevation and good fortune. Chapter v. shows a man so
engrossed with a feeling of hatred, that he builds a gallows of his own
on which to hang his enemy. Chapter vi. pretends to relate how a
king can honour a subject who has served him ; but the story is so
overdone that it becomes outrageously improbable. Chapter vii. is an
attempt to pourtray an instance of retributive justice, but it is a failure,
for the wicked Haman, who dies on his own gallows, is not hanged for
seeking the lives of the Jews, but because the king in his mad fury
mistook the meaning of his subject’s supplication. Chapter viii. shows
a vacillating and sanguinary tyrant playing with the lives of his subjects
at the merest caprice, sparing neither women nor little innocent chil
dren. Chapter ix. contains an account of deeds worthy only of fiends,
the bear recital of which makes one shudder, but over which God’s
chosen cannibals rejoice and make merry, and call it a good day, which
they will celebrate with feasting and rejoicing through all coming time.
And Esther, the heroine of the book, God’s appointed agent to save
his peculiar people, when told of the glorious slaughter which her
brethren had had the first day, begged the boon of one more day of
the hellish work, that the agony might be prolonged, that more wives
might be made widows, that there should be more children made
orphans, that the desolation might be more widespread, and that the
wail of despair might again resound through the affrighted city. And
chapter x. closes the book with the pompous parade of Mordecai’s
greatness in the eyes of the multitude, and of his ‘ ‘ seeking the wealth
of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed.” Oh, bitter mockery !
the peace he had won was the peace of the grave and the silence of
death.
And this is the inspired word of God ; and these are the people for
whom the Lord had an especial liking. What could have been the
object of the concoctors of the Bible in including this book among the
canonical gospels ? It could not have been intended as a compliment
to the Deity, because his name is never mentioned in it under any one
title by which he is known. It does not point the way to mansions in
the skies ; for though death, in all its ghastliness, is constantly present,
any supposed immortality is never alluded to. Even the most besotted
bigot could scarcely maintain that it was intended to convey a moral
lesson in any one chapter or verse. Nothing could be more ferocious
and imbecile than this king, who grants everything that is asked of him
by every favourite of the hour, and who not even by accident performs
a good action. The queen too, who to graces of person should have
added beauties of heart and mind, on the only occasion on which she
possessed the power of doing anything great or good, manifested a dis
position which would disgrace a North American savage when on the
war trail. Then what is the object of this book? It can only be in
tended to show the “providential” preservation of the Jews from a
great peril, and, being the children of God, it was necessary that they
should be spared to carry out God’s plans upon earth. Was anything
ever more monstrous than this ? If what is recorded of the Jews in the
Bible be true, they are as vile a race as ever trod the earth.
�10
The Book of Esther.
And this book is read in Sunday-schools, and these are the lessons
implanted in the young and tender minds of children. From the
earliest moment they are taught to reverence this volume as the sacred
word of God, and not to doubt or call in question, on pain of eternal,
never-ending torments, a single line or word therein ? What does
Theodore Parker say on this point ?—
“To the Bible the minister prostitutes his mind and conscience,
heart and soul ; on the authority of an anonymous Hebrew book, he
will justify the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children, by the
thousand ; and, on that of an anonymous Greek book, he will believe,
or at least command others to believe, that man is born totally de
praved, and God will perpetually slaughter men in hell by the million,
though they had committed no fault, except that" of not believing an
absurd doctrine they had never heard of. Ministers take the Bible in
the lump as divine; all between the lids of the book is equally the
‘ Word of God,’ infallible and miraculous : he that believeth it shall
be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned ; no amount of
piety and morality can make up for not believing this. No doctor is
ever so subordinate to his drug, no lawyer lies so prone before statute
and custom, as the mass of ministers before the Bible, the great fetish
of Protestant Christendom. The Ephesians did not so worship their
great goddess Diana and the meteoric stone which fell down from
Jupiter. ‘We can believe anything,’ say they, ‘which has a “ Thus
saith the Lord ” before or after it.’ The Bible is not only master of
the soul, it is also a talisman to keep men from harm ; bodily contact
with it, through hand or eye, is a part of religion ; so it lies in railroad
stations, in the parlours and sleeping chambers of taverns, and the
cabins of ships, only to be seen and touched, not read. The pious
mother puts it in the trunk of her prodigal son about to travel, and
while she knows he is Wasting her substance in riotous living, she con
tents herself with the thought that ‘ he has got his Bible with him, and
promised to read a chapter every day !’ So the Catholic mother uses
an image of the ‘Virgin Mother of God,’ and the Rocky Mountain
savage a bundle of grass : it is a fetish."
Now, a God of mercy, and justice, and lovingkindness can never
approve of this. This delusion is perpetuated, and this evil is kept up
by some from interested motives ; by others from ignorance of the real
nature of the book they were taught in their infancy to prostrate their
reason before, and by most from a feeling of fanaticism and supersti
tion. Thomas Paine, who speaks as a Deist, says :—
“ It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible,
and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on the
world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God ; they have disputed
and wrangled, and have anathematised each other about the supposable
meaning of particular parts and passages therein—one has said and
insisted that such a passage meant such a thing ; another that it meant K
directly the contrary ; and a third, that it neither meant one nor the
other, but something different from both—and this they call understand
ing the Bible. There are matters in that book, said to be done by the
express command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every
idea we have of moral justice, as anything done by Robespierre, by
Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France ; by the English Government in
the East Indies ; or by any other assassin in modem times. When we
read in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, &c., that the Israelites
came by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, as the history it
�The Book of Esther.
11
self shows, had given them no offence—that they put all those nations
to the sword; that they spared neither age nor infancy; that they utterly
destroyed men, women, and children; that they left- not a soul to
breathe ; expressions that are repeated over and over again in those
books, and that too with exulting ferocity ; are we sure these things are
facts ? Are we sure that the Creator of man commissioned these things
to be done ? Are we sure that the books which tell us so were written
by his authority ? To charge the commission of acts upon the Almighty,
which in their nature, and by every rule of moral justice, are crimes—
as all assassination is, and more especially the assassination of infants—
is matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us that these assassinations
were done by the express commartd of God. To believe therefore the
Bible to be true, we must unbelieve all our belief in the moral justice of
God : for wherein could crying or smiling infants offend ? And to read
the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender,
sympathising, and benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for my
self, if I had no other evidence that the Bible is fabulous, than the
sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true, that alone would be suf
ficient to determine my choice.”
What can be done to sweep this delusion from the minds of men,
which for nearly eighteen hundred years has been preached to them by
the aid of church and cannon, sword and surplice? For ages the
pioneer of truth was always its martyr, till despair almost entered the
heart of those who sought the service of humanity. But there still re
mained a heroic few who nobly passed the banner of truth from gene
ration to generation, till it has reached our time, and now waves more
freely in the breezes of awakened intelligence, which ere long will swell
i.nto a whirlwind of enlightenment, which shall sweep before it every
vestige of the dark clouds of ignorance and superstition which have
overshadowed the fair face of nature, and been the prolific parents of
all those calamities which have befallen poor humanity groping its way
through the darkness of ignorance, and stumbling at every step over
those things which might be turned into stepping-stones to assist their
onward march, if they had but more mental light with which to illumine
their path through life.
If I were a believer in a Special Providence answering the supplica
tions of men, I would kneel at the “throne of grace,” and importune
the Deity to end this war, and strife, and hatred among his children.
Not with a scoffing tongue do I now say it, but in all seriousness, as
becomes the solemnity of such a task, and I would offer up this
PRAYER.
O God, who art omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent; allpowerful, all-wise, and all-just; who existed before time was, and who
made all-things ; who searchest the hearts of all, and knowest our most
secret thoughts—vouchsafe but one word that shall stop at once and
for ever all the horrors that are committed in thy name; utter it in the
thunder that all may hear to the remotest comers of the earth, or write
it across the heavens in characters that all, of every nation and every
tongue, may read and understand. Thou knowest, in thy infinite
wisdom, that men, groping their way by the dim light of ages past,
fail to see the truth they fain would reach. Some by accident find the
precious treasure; others clutch error, and, clinging to it with the
tenacity of despair, make war upon all around them. O thou bene
ficent Deity, one word from thee would open the eyes of all, making
�12
The Book of Esther.
the blind to see and the dull to understand. This Bible, for which men
lie, and cheat, and persecute—which inculcates doctrines the most con
tradictory, immoral, and revolting—which records deeds done in thy
name at which humanity shudders aghast—can it be thy message of
mercy to mankind? Didst thou, in thy boundless benevolence, in
spire its pages, and in thy immutable justice send it as a guide for the
human race ? Is it serving thee for the professors of Bible religion to
rend one another? In one country, Catholic Christians imprison and
torture their Protestant brethren ; in another, the Protestants tax,
persecute, and oppress their Catholio fellow-subjects, and all in thy
name. Eighteen hundred years ago a Jew who preached a new doc
trine was cruelly put to death. An effigy of his mangled and bleeding
body, nailed to a cross, is the emblem of Christians, under which they
have made war, and slaughtered tens and hundreds of thousands of
their fellow creatures. This murdered man is called thy Son, and all
are commanded to worship him, on pain of death in some countries,
and of social persecution and hatred in others. Are we justified, O
God, in thy sight in regarding this symbol of blood and suffering as a
sign of thy love for the family of man ? In England (this small speck
in thy immense universe), there are thousands of thy creatures steeped
in the deepest poverty and crime; thousands lolling in the lap of luxury,
extravagance, and wealth ; thousands of priests paid millions a year,
wrung from the hard earnings of industry, to preach what is called thy
“holy word,” which in one part declares “the poor will not cease
from out the land.” Is this, O Lord, the most perfect state of society to
which men can attain ? Every despot in Europe, who oppresses his
subjects, and slaughters them if they complain, is styled “ Most Chris
tian Majesty,” and he declares that he rules by right divine derived
direct from thee. The Pope of Rome, the head of an ecclesiastical
despotism, which keeps men ignorant and rules them as slaves, is called
thy Vicegerent upon earth. All claim Bible sanction for what they do.
My sense of right revolts at all this, and I beseech thee, O thou God
of justice and righteousness, to direct me in the right path, if I am
erring in my judgment of thy goodness and truth. Rather would I
say, the vast majority of the populations of the world are tortured and
enslaved by the dominant few who rule in thy name, because the
masses are ignorant and therefore helpless. In anguish I cry unto
thee—
“ When wilt thou save the people,
O God of mercy, when ?
Not crowns and thrones, but nations;
Not kings and lords, but men ?”
One word from thy everlasting lips would bind all hearts in one; would
reconcile man to man the world over; would inaugurate the reign of
love and peace, and banish hate and all uncharitableness. Speak this
word, O Lord, I implore thee, that man may go on his way rejoicing,
giving and receiving pleasure ; shed thy radiance on mankind, that they
may feel thy kingdom has come ; establish thy Paradise upon earth ;
and thine be the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
London : Printed and Published by Austin & Co., I7> Johnson’s
Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The book of Esther: a specimen of what passes as the inspired word of God
Creator
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Holyoake, Austin [1826-1874]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 12 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Austin & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
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CT16
Subject
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Bible
Atheism
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The book of Esther: a specimen of what passes as the inspired word of God), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Atheism
Bible-O.T.-Esther
Conway Tracts