Human life is well likened to the river which glides smoothly and evenly along from the spring where it rises to the sea into which it falls. But it is also well compared to the wheel which takes to the bottom that which was at the top, and to the top that which was at the bottom. There is much of orderly and regular procedure; there is much also of change and reversal. Seldom, indeed, does human life present before our eyes the picture of so signal and complete a reversal as that told in the text. Haman, the favourite, the prime minister of state, the all-powerful courtier, the wealthy and strong noble, hanged on the gallows; Mordecai, the despised Jew, whose life was seriously threatened, and likely to end most ignominiously, promoted to highest favour and greatest influence with the king. These reversals were not mere accidents; they illustrate the truths -

I. THAT, SOONER OR LATER, SUCCESSFUL SIN WILL BE OVERTHROWN (vers. 9, 10). We all "see the prosperity of the wicked," as the Psalmist did, and, like him, we are grieved and troubled by it. But we must be like the patient patriarch, and wait to see "the end of the Lord." If we wait long enough we shall find that sin meets with its due award. The guilty empire founded in usurpation and bloodshed, and maintained by violence and corruption, goes down and goes out in ignominy and disaster. The guilty adventurer rears his head for many years, but misfortune and misery overtake him in time. Haman goes to the gallows at last.

"The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small;
With patience he stands waiting, but with exactness grinds he all." The truth is, that sin carries in itself the seeds of its own discomfiture; these must germinate, and grow, and bear fruit in time. "I have seen the wicked in great power," etc.; but wait awhile, and "lo, he is not: he has passed away" (Psalm 37:35).

II. THAT, SOONER OR LATER, PERSECUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL TRIUMPH (Esther 8:1, 2). Haman has gone to the gallows, and now Mordecai takes the chief chair of state. Honesty proves the true policy in the end. Purity, uprightness, integrity, kindness - these have in them the power and prophecy of ultimate success. Let the godly man who is oppressed by iniquity bear his burden, and also his testimony; let him patiently pursue his course, looking, up and looking on, and somewhere in the. future the crown of a pure success awaits him - if not here, hereafter. "Weeping may endure for a night" - possibly a long night - but "joy comes in the morning." It may be the morrow of the distant future, but it will then be the beginning of a cloudless and endless day.

III. THAT SIN CONTINUALLY SUFFERS FROM ITS OWN HAND. "They hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai" (ver. 10). Into the very trap he laid for another his own foot fails. We learn -

1. That sin frequently brings on itself the very evil it designed for others. A man bent on ruining another (by legal measures, or unfair under-selling, etc.) often impoverishes himself. A man in his wrath goes out to slay, and is himself the slain one. The accuser of others is condemned by others, and suffers general reprobation.

2. That sin invariably suffers as the consequence of the evil which it does. If it does not endure the very evil it designs, it does bear its penalty. No man can hurt another without being hurt himself. The chief victim, the principal sufferer from sin, is the sinner. Every act of evil, every thought of sin, inflicts a damaging wound, more or less obvious, in the breast of the evil-doer, in the heart of the sinner. Contrast with this stern truth the obverse -

IV. THAT GOODNESS ALWAYS BLESSES THE AGENT AS WELL AS THE OBJECT. It is not mercy only, but every kind of work, that "blesses him that gives and him that takes." "Give, and it shall be given unto you." "He that watereth shall himself be watered." - C.

I. We see how, IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD, THE WEALTH WHICH WORLDLY MEN WOULD USE IN OPPOSITION TO THE INTERESTS OF GOD'S CAUSE AND PEOPLE MAY BE WRESTED FROM THEM, AND MADE AVAILABLE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THESE INTERESTS. The conclusion which we draw from all this is, that the best and happiest arrangement which a man can make with respect to the good things which have been bestowed upon him is that in his lifetime he seek to be personally the dispenser of good to others. If he lives and acts in this spirit, then he will have the less anxiety as to the disposal of what he may be able to leave behind him.

II. The peculiar providence which we see exercised in the case of Mordecai teaches us THAT MEN MAY BE WELL CONTENT TO WAIT, WHILE THEY ARE IN THE WAY OF WELL-DOING, UNTIL THEY RECEIVE THEIR RECOMPENSE. Worth and faithfulness and humility, after they have been long neglected, are brought into the light, and are honoured in proportion to the neglect which they formerly experienced.

III. FROM ESTHER'S LOVE FOR HER PEOPLE WE TAKE A LESSON. Then should not this be an example to those among us, who themselves have had their souls gladdened by the grace of God, to be mindful of others who have not been visited so graciously?

IV. THE LESSON WHICH IS TO BE DRAWN FROM THE CONDUCT OF THE KING AS IT IS HERE EXHIBITED. If one man, for example, has injured another, and knows it, but is too proud to acknowledge it, then he is destitute of the true spirit of Christianity. If a man is engaged in a wrong course of action, and is sensible of it, but will put his soul in peril rather than yield to the remonstrances of his friends, then his pride will certainly prove the ruin of his soul. There is, perhaps, more real heroism in confessing and correcting errors and weaknesses than there is in boldly contending for truth, when we are conscious that we have it on our side. Many voices will cheer us onward in the defence of principles which we defend at some risk. The courage that suffers in a good cause will always get applause. But when I have done wrong, and make confession of the wrong, the men of the world do not sympathise.

(A. B. Davidson, D. D.)