In this way all difficulty vanishes. But the passage still retains a special significance. Mordecai was a true Jew, of the once royal tribe of Benjamin, a descendant of one of the captive contemporaries of Jeconiah, and therefore most likely a scion of a princely house. The preservation of his ancestral record gives us a hint of the sort of mental pabulum on which the man had been nurtured. Living in the palace, apparently as a porter, and possibly as a eunuch of the harem, Mordecai would have been tempted to forget his people. Nevertheless it is plain that he had cherished traditions of the sad past, and trained his soul to cling to the story of his fathers' sufferings in spite of all the distractions and dissipations of a Persian court life. Though in a humbler sphere, he thus resembled Artaxerxes' cup-bearer, the great patriot Nehemiah. [266] Esther ii. 5, 6. The peculiarity of Mordecai's part in the story is this, that he is the moving spirit of all that is done for the deliverance of Israel at a time of desperate peril without being at first a prominent character. Thus he first appears as the guardian of his young cousin, whom he has cherished and trained, and whom he now introduces to the royal harem where she will play her more conspicuous part. Throughout the whole course of events Mordecai's voice is repeatedly heard, but usually as that of Esther's prompter. He haunts the precincts of the harem, if by chance he may catch a glimpse of his foster child. He is a lonely man now, for he has parted with the light of his home. He has done this voluntarily, unselfishly--first, to advance the lovely creature who has been committed to his charge, and secondly, as it turns out, for the saving of his people. Even now his chief thought is not for the cheering of his own solitude. His constant aim is to guide his young cousin in the difficult path of her new career. Subsequently he receives the highest honours the king can bestow; but he never seeks them, and he would be quite content to remain in the background to the end, if only his eager desire for the good of his people could be accomplished by the queen who has learnt to lean upon his counsel from her childhood. Such self-effacement is most rare and beautiful. A subtle temptation to self-regarding ambition besets the path of every man who attempts some great public work for the good of others in a way that necessarily brings him under observation. Even though he believes himself to be inspired by the purest patriotism, it is impossible for him not to perceive that he is exposing himself to admiration by the very disinterestedness of his conduct. The rare thing is to see the same earnestness on the part of a person in an obscure place, willing that the whole of his energy should be devoted to the training and guiding of another, who alone is to become the visible agent of some great work.