But then, again, the queen would ask herself, What would be the good of her running such a risk? Is it reasonable that she, a single weak woman, unskilled in the ways of courts and of cunning courtiers; that she should be asked to plunge into a whirlpool of race-hatreds and furious feuds between unscrupulous nobles and potentates about the court; that she should confront the reckless rage of the royal tyrant—she, so defenceless, so impotent, so frail? Ah, yes! once again the argument was good to shirk the path of heroism; but once again, what business had she to argue? When duty comes to you it is not a thing to reason about. You have got to just go and do it. Mother, when your little one was struck down with the deadliest and most infectious ailment, did you reason for one moment whether you could be expected to risk your life, whether you were not too delicate to make it worth while doing it, whether you would not be throwing away your existence? If any man came and suggested that to you,—"No!" Love, duty, they do not argue, they command. The fact of the matter was, the queen was standing in a false position. She could not see the truth, she could not see the right, where she stood. I hope I have been able to show you how very plausible, how very weighty, the grounds were on which she made her refusal to risk her life. But have not you yourselves felt something about a home atmosphere in which such reasoning moved that is contemptible and despicable? Have not you recognised its infinite pettiness and littleness? Oh, what a narrow, contracted, selfish world that woman's heart is living in! It has been all a question about Esther—Esther's life, Esther's risks, Esther's obligations, as if that were the whole. Why not break down those prison walls of littleness? Look at those thousands of Jews—fathers, mothers, young maidens, brave lads, little children with their bright eyes, and with terrible death impending over them. How is Esther so forgetful of them, with their white faces and their anxious eyes, and of God's purposes in this world? Ah, no man can ever choose the path of right, of heroism, of goodness, of duty, till he sees and feels himself in God's big world, and with God above him up in heaven!