The Parody of Legislature
P.C. Barker Esther 1:16-22 And Memucan answered before the king and the princes, Vashti the queen has not done wrong to the king only, but also to all the princes… If any be tempted at first to think of the king's conferences (as here reported) with those whom we will call his statesmen as though they were scarcely serious and in earnest, - fortunate to be carried on within the protection of closed doors; the monarch, in fact, secretly smiling at his ministers, and they in turn scarcely dissembling in his presence their real convictions of his impossible folly and of their own obsequious and shallow proposals, - yet it would be found impossible to sustain this supposition. It will not bear investigation! The doors were but a short while closed doors, and the after proceedings give evidence ample that this was not intended to be any mere travesty of a privy council, however much to our eye it may resemble it. Assuming, therefore, what we do not doubt will be correctly assumed, that the occasion was one of widespread social bearings: and that the proceedings here narrated were of a bona fide character, we have again an impressive illustration of the fact that God's work in the constitution of human nature, God's force in human feeling and life, insists on bearing down all artificial barriers and sweeping away all such obstruction. It possesses such a cumulative character. In silence, in depth of operation, in the multiplication of an exceeding number of persistent vital ultimate facts in the constitution of the human family, a force is often stealthily generating and surely gaining headway, which at last tears down all that opposed, and that long seemed sure of its oppressing grasp. The "too much contempt and wrath" slowly "arise," and are sure to find opportunity to take their revenge, even on the part of "a feeble folk! Thus a folk feeble enough, when considered one by one, will prove irresistible in combination! I. NOTICE HOW THE HUMAN HEART, HUMAN LIFE IN ITS TENDEREST MAKE, IN ITS MOST YIELDING MOOD, RESENTS IN THE LONG RUN ARBITRARY FORCE. Even the feminine character knows despotism to be an unnatural thing, a discreditable violation of its own rights. The less obtrusive the claims of that feminine character, the more should they be studied by anticipation. Even that yielding' disposition craves reason before force, right before might, considerateness before compulsion. The husband, the father, the social temper, the national temper, that forgets and sins against this has only to forget it and sin against it long enough to reap whirlwind and the most real of ruin. To what a pass had the treatment long meted out to women of the country and the age in question now come! What a humiliating confession from head-quarters when the king himself, who reigned from India unto Ethiopia," and these elder "seven wise men of the east," are found thrown into a pitiable panic, a paroxysm of apprehension, lest there should happen a moral and social insurrection of their women, "great and small," throughout the vast extent of the country and its "one hundred and twenty-seven provinces," against, forsooth, "their husbands;" and in the sense, forsooth, of "despising" them and disputing their rule! II. NOTICE TWO POLITICAL ALTERNATIVES. What must be either the degenerate social state of a nation, or its ripened state in any individual direction for some very radical alterative, when the spark that is feared is such a thing as this, anything analogous to this - the one word "no" of one woman! The one resisting act of a wife, who is a queen, to the rude and licentious command of her husband, who is a king! The country of which this is true, the constitution of which this is true, in any part of it, must be dry indeed for a conflagration! III. NOTICE THE INDESCRIBABLE INANITY OF THE MERE MAKING AND PROCLAMATION OF A DECREE ON A MORAL AND SOCIAL SUBJECT WHEN IT IS NOT BASED ON REASON, ON NATURAL RELIGION, ON EDUCATION, to say nothing of other religious sanction; or when the just utterances of these authorities are rendered utterly indistinct, are stifled by the improper conduct of one half of the people, towards the other half, who may be aimed at by the decree. No number of decrees, no severity of sanctions attached to them, could possibly bring all the women of a vast country to honour and obey from the heart their husbands, while these should continue to act towards them in a manner contrary to the Divine voice and to the charter of creation! The illustration which this history offers is patent and bold. The case appears a violent one; the position one to which modern days offer no sufficient parallel. It is a call for unbounded gratitude on the part of England, if it be so. But the lesson for other lands is still wanted in its most alphabetic form; and who can deny that all nations need the delicate guidance of the same principle in outline, though in a less visible, less common form? IV. LASTLY, WHEN THE LAST COMES TO THE LAST, COURTIERS AND THE MOST OBSEQUIOUS OF THEM DO NOT THINK SO MUCH OF THEIR ROYAL MASTERS AS THEY DO OF THEMSELVES AND THEIR FELLOWS. Kingdoms are not made for kings, the ruled for rulers, but the reverse. And, probably without a thought of it himself, Memucan in his answer (ver. 16) shows himself keeping by no means to the view of the position which the king had set forth and enlarged upon in his question. Supposing there to have been (what there was not) advantage obtainable in the decree, the insult (so interpreted) that had been offered to the king is almost thrust on one side, while the wily counsellors seem forthwith to scent the opportunity of an advantage to themselves and the widespread people! So the magnified affronts of the great are turned by Providence to a very different use from the vindication of their individual pride or vanity. Conclusion. - While there is perhaps not a little in these verses which invites and almost provokes our modern satire, there is certainly one great impression resulting from the whole, and deserving of the fullest attention and most constant memory namely, that great moral, social, religious effects must not be sought primarily by mere legislative enactment. They must be sought by a diligent use of corresponding methods, and then even will be found only in God's blessing upon them. - B. Parallel Verses KJV: And Memucan answered before the king and the princes, Vashti 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 of the king Ahasuerus. WEB: Memucan answered before the king and the princes, "Vashti the queen has not done wrong to just the king, but also to all the princes, and to all the people who are in all the provinces of the King Ahasuerus.