That a Jewish woman should have been elevated to such a position in the Persian palace seems so improbable that some have been inclined to doubt the accuracy of the story which the Book of Esther records, especially since profane history tells of but one wife of Ahasuerus, Amestris. But the argument from silence is always precarious. Vashti and Esther may easily have been extra-legal wives of the king, even though Amestris were his only legally recognized wife. The well-known custom of Oriental monarchies makes such a view highly probable. At all events, there stands the well-known feast of Purim, the "festival of the Lots," as a monument in Jewish religious life of the substantial accuracy of the events recorded in the Book of Esther. The power of Esther's life and of her service to her people in exile may be in a measure estimated by the fact that no book in all the Bible was so much copied, or was so generally in possession of the Jewish families as that of Esther. Indeed, it was asserted by Maimonides and believed by many that when at the coming of Messiah all the rest of the Old Testament should pass away, there would still remain the five books of the law and the Book of Esther. Written as it was, upon separate scrolls, it was in thousands of Jewish houses. Even at the present day rolls containing Esther are the prized possession of Jewish families; and these are sometimes even now passed down from parents to their children upon the wedding day. On the day of Purim, the book is read in public as a part of the service, that the way in which Esther became the savior of her people may never be forgotten. The power of Esther's story over the Jewish mind has seemed the more remarkable, since it is the single book in the Hebrew Canon which does not contain the name of God. But on the other hand, there is no Hebrew writing that is so intense in its national spirit; none which breathes and burns so deeply with the characteristic genius of "the peculiar people."